Welcome to the Dark Side
by Stratusfied247
Summary: AU - The judge and jury determine the convictions, but they're nothing without their executioners. The organization is known as Shield, and they recruit the killers, hacks, and thieves of the world to do their bidding. They give them a new life and a way out, and the freedom to do all of the bad things that society says they can't do. This is the story of one of their bases.
1. Recruitment

**A/N:** The following characters are planned to be included in this story: Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Trish Stratus, Paul Heyman, Kaitlyn, AJ Lee, Stacy Keibler and The Miz. These are the main characters that will be seen the most. However, anyone from the WWE may show up in this story at any given time.**  
**

**Dean**

As he sat hunched in the corner, the seat of his pants brushing the dirty floor, he reminded himself that, at least it would be over soon. Not that he was afraid, or hurt, or couldn't handle it. No, at the end of the day, when he gave enough of a fuck to figure out when one day ended and another day began, he was just really fucking bored.

TV didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. Prison looked dangerous and exciting, like it was a concrete jungle and only the strongest survived. But, really, it had been so damn boring, he'd been forced to start shit of his own just to get a thrill. And what did that get him? This fucking hole, that's what, and that was even more boring than the old guy two cells down from him, back in the block, trying to teach him how to play chess.

_Fuck you, old man, I already know how to play chess._

A breakout could have made things a little more fun. But for that, he'd need some inside people, and well... you can't trust a murderer any more than you could trust a thief, and hello! He was in fucking prison. There was nothing around him but murderers and thieves.

But, in a couple of weeks, it would be over. They would lead him to the death chamber, and yeah, he'd have to suffer the eyes and the blinding white light in the room, because of course, they would have to make it as bright as possible in there. But, then, that first injection would go in and his eyelids would close, his body would relax. He wouldn't even know it when they put the poison into his veins and ended his life. He would only know that he was dead when he woke up surrounded by the flames of Hell, ready to give the Devil a run for his money.

Before they killed him, though, he was going to make sure they knew exactly what he thought of them. Yeah, he thought, give me my last words. I'll fucking give you more words than you can imagine.

The cell door opened, the hinges smooth, but the bottom of the door off hinge enough to scrape on the floor. He rose his head and squinted against the harsh light that flooded his cell.

A woman walked toward him, her face in shadows. She was short, but don't tell her that. Her ample hips moved side to side, giving her a bit of boom-ba-da-boom that signified her confidence. Her heels clicked on the floor. He could tell she was blonde by the way the light behind her lit up the aura of her hair. She seemed like the kind of woman he should stand up for.

He had two fucking weeks left. Fuck standing up.

The woman squatted down in front of him. Her fingertips dragged on the floor, tracing zig zag lines on the concrete. He looked at her and grunted, but said nothing. It was his place. He didn't have to say shit if he didn't want to. Besides, who'd invited this bitch to come and gawk at the inmate.

"Are you ready to die, Mr. Ambrose?" Her question didn't hold any black humor. There was none of the mockery that came from the guards. It was simply a question, and the way her big brown eyes watched him, she wanted an answer.

He grunted. "Kinda." His voice was scratchy, his throat dry. Because of that guard who was now finding out if his insurance covered the glass eye he would need, they made him choose between water they'd probably pissed in and his smokes. He had said fuck them, and gone with the smokes.

Her head tipped to the side. Her lips puckered in a smirk. She had kissable lips. What else was kissable about her. The thighs, yeah, those he wouldn't mind getting his lips on. The tits, too, they looked hot.

He wasn't usually so vulgar when it came to woman. He couldn't say that his momma had taught him right. If anything, she taught him about whores and how assholes worked. She taught him that some women didn't give a shit what men thought about them, and some cared so much that they became that thing that men told them they were. And those women went home and they showed their sons how to be a bastard and that women didn't deserve respect.

He had learned on his own that he thought the whole thing was a piece of fucking shit, and if he wasn't going to do anything else worthwhile in the universe, he was gonna save some kid from thinking that his mother was a filthy whore.

So, he was usually more courteous to women, tried not to think of them as just sex objects, unless that's what they gave him. But, this chick was tough, and she was in command, and there was something so casually cold about her eyes that the only way to stop him from being afraid was to turn her into something no better than what his mother had been.

She ran her tongue over her full lips, then asked him, "Are you bored, Dean? I can call you Dean, right?"

"You can call me a son of a bitch if you use that voice when you do it."

"I think I'll stick with Dean." She winked at him. "And you can call me ma'am."

He barked a laugh. "Not fuckin' likely," he muttered. Dean put his hands to the walls at either side of him and pushed himself up to his feet. He fell back against the wall, leaning back, but at least upright. "The fuck do you want, lady?"

"It's very simple." She stood up a lot easier than he had. She was also healthy and well-fed. Bully for her. "My employer thinks you can be useful, Dean. If you can be contained, if you can be even remotely controlled... We think you could be very useful."

"You've got use for a convicted serial killer."

"I have use for a man with your set of skills. A serial killer..." She shrugged. "We both know that you did some of those, but you didn't do all of them." She stepped up to him and looked up into his eyes. There was no fear in her, no apprehension. She was standing toe-to-toe with a fucking killer, and she looked like she was daring him to make a move. If she had that in her, then there was no way in hell he was making a move. That bitch was dangerous.

"The thing is, Dean, I need to know if you really are ready to die, because if you are, I'll leave you here. I don't have time to deal with depression and suicidal tendencies. So, if you really want to die, then I will take my leave, and I bid you a fond execution."

She stared at him, waited for him to say something, but Dean was working on his own timeline. Let her think that he wasn't interested, that he didnt' care. Fuck yeah, he was ready to die, because this whole thing was bullshit, and if he wasn't going to get to do anything that made him feel alive, if he couldn't have any fun, then hell yeah, he was ready to die.

She shrugged. "Suit yourself." She turned and there were those hips again as she moved across the floor. Dean watched the show, because damn, it had been a while since he'd seen any ass at all, let alone an ass like that.

He waited until she was at the door to say, "When the choices are boredom or death, I'll take death every time."

She stopped in the doorway and turned slowly, pivoting on her heel to face him. "Believe me, Mr. Ambrose, what I have in store for you is anything but dull."

"My kind of fun?"

"Absolutely."

Dean pushed off of the wall and took two steps forward. "Then, Ms. Badass Baby Doll, I am nowhere near ready to let go of this bitch we know as life."

* * *

**Roman**

The woman sitting across from him was definitely not his usual therapist. That guy had been a pain in the ass, asking the same questions over and over again, as though the answer was going to ever change. It was a very simple routine they had, and the guy just didn't seem to get that it was called a routine for a reason. He asked, "Roman, how are you feeling today?" And Roman replied with a glare and a sneer.

How in the hell did he think that he was doing? Exactly the same as yesterday, and every day since his tour ended and he thought that he could settle back into regular life. Apparently, he had been an idiot to think that was even possible. He had been given a very special skill set, and those kinds of skills weren't going to get him a job. Those skills made the idea of most jobs in the civilian world sound worse than a ten mile hike through the desert.

"I've been told a lot about you, Mr. Reigns."

Roman rose his head, pushed his shoulders back. The end of his long black ponytail caught between his back and the chair, and he yanked it from behind him, tossing it over his shoulder. "Uh huh."

"Among other things," she said, "I've been told that you're having some trouble readjusting to life in the civilian world."

"That's one way to put it."

"What if I told you that I could make that readjustment unnecessary?"

Roman grunted. There was no way he was going back into the military. He only went in the first time because it was expected of him. Almost every male in his family since his grandfather had served in the armed forces, and at least two of the women. He respected the military, he knew that it stood for something good, but he wasn't a big one on taking the kind of orders that they were dishing out.

His problems came when they realized that he enjoyed a certain kind of work. The problems rose to a new level when they figured out just how good he was at that kind of work.

"Your specialty was close quarters, am I right?" Roman only grunted at her. "For a man your size, you were very good at stealth work."

Roman still remained silent.

"Rest assured, Mr. Reigns, that I am not talking about joining the military again."

"I'd care more about what you were talking about if I even knew your name."

She smiled at him, and there was nothing friendly in that smile. Roman had met a few women in his lifetime that sent shivers of fear down his spine, and this was one of them. She had a smile that didn't touch her cold eyes. And those eyes were more than cold. They were dangerous. They were eyes of a predator.

"Call me Trish," she told him.

"Well, Trish, outside of the military, there isn't really much use for my skills, are there? So, if you're really here to find out if I did any of the missing persons that have occasionally popped up around town, the answer is no. I can control myself."

For now, but he didn't add that in there. He didn't tell the weasel that asked him on a regular basis how things were going the truth of anything, because he had taken an oath that said that, if he knew what Roman really wanted to do, he would have to have him committed. He didn't tell him that last month, he'd seen a man arguing with his girlfriend and Roman had to shove his hands in his pockets before anyone saw that he was mimicking the act of strangling the man. He didn't tell him that he spent the better part of a week and a half tracking a suspected pedophile.

The fact of the matter was, Roman liked the killing part of his job in the Marines more than anything else, and not just the jerk of his rifle, the kickback in his shoulder when he spent bullets flying into an insurgent across a sandy battlefield. He preferred his up close work, when he got to look into a man's eyes while his large hands were wrapped around his throat and watched the life go out of him. He liked to hear a son of a bitch beg two seconds after he'd been yelling expletives at him, because when you were shitting your pants, begging was the only thing you had left to do.

Roman knew that it wasn't right, that something was wrong with him, so he set rules on himself. His first rule was no women and no children. He was sure that it would be no different from killing a man, but he had to draw the line somewhere. His second rule was that he focused on the really bad people, because if he didn't have a focus, everyone around him would start to look like a victim. And in the civilian world, there were almost more really bad people to focus on that in the world of war.

"We've been watching you, Roman," she said, leaning forward until her forearms rested on the desk. "I'm well aware that you haven't killed anyone." She paused, then said, "Yet."

Roman bristled. He didn't like people watching him. He had done his time, and that was another reason he had ended his time. He could have re-enlisted. He could have signed up for another tour. But, they always had eyes on him, waiting for the time when their animal broke his leash. And then they would put him down. He almost smirked. They would try to put him down, at least.

Trish flattened her hands on the desk and pushed herself up. Roman watched the muscles in her arms tighten and flex. He assumed she had worn a sleeveless shirt just for that reason, to show that she wasn't just a pretty face with big breasts and great blonde hair. She wasn't a woman to be trifled with, and if she had to flex her muscles to prove that, then so be it.

Roman didn't follow her movements as she moved around the desk, at least not with his eyes. He listened for her, though. He heard her footfalls as she walked around him. He heard the door to the office close, then the blinds on all of the windows, interior and exterior, slap shut. She never came closer than five feet to him, moving around him as though he had a bubble around him.

Trish came back around and hopped up on the desk. She slid back until she could cross her legs. Another thing he noticed, she wore pants instead of a skirt. She wasn't trying to entice him with sex. She was a woman on a mission. The bare skin of her arms were for a reason as much as the covered skin of her legs.

She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her leg. "Let's talk frank for a minute, shall we, Roman?"

He shrugged. "Say what you want."

"Oh, believe me, Roman, I do." She flashed a grin at him, and again, Roman felt the sense of danger. She kept that smile as she said, "My employer has access to things in your file that even you would never be able to see."

This was the first mention of an employer. Interesting, he would have thought this woman to be in charge of the whole thing. But, she had been recruited the same as he had. Roman wondered what her special skills were, or if she'd been hired solely because she could make a man fear for his life with just a smile.

"You're not just good at what you do, Roman, you enjoy it, and that is both a blessing and a curse. Enjoying your work means that you'll be so much better at it. However, it also makes you a liability, because no one knows if you're going to start enjoying your work outside of orders."

"Then why do you want me?" Roman asked her.

"Because we've been watching you, Roman, and we think that we can give you enough work that you won't have to go outside of what we give you. We also know that you've set yourself up some very interesting rules. That's why you were recommended to us, Roman. Because you're slightly psychotic, but you're not crazy."

"And you know I'm not crazy because you read my file?"

"I know you're not crazy because crazy people don't know they're crazy. You know enough to control yourself. We can help you with that control. But, more importantly, we can let you loose on some very, very bad men. Have the time of your life, Roman. As long as it's who we say to kill, we won't stop you."

Roman lifted a curious eyebrow. "You point and I shoot."

"Shoot, strangle, stab…" Trish spread her hands in front of her, then let them fall to her sides. "However you want to do it. Now, occasionally, we'll need things done in a very special way, and we expect you to respect that. But outside of those occasional times, be as creative as you like."

He wondered for a moment if this was some kind of set-up. Maybe she was a cop- No, she didn't have the look of a cop. She had the look of a killer, like she knew the feel of blood on her hands, and had watched the soul leave a few bodies of her own. She looked like she knew what he felt, what he liked to do, and from time to time, had enjoyed it herself. She looked the only kind of person he could trust. She looked just like him.

Roman pushed himself up in his chair until his back was straight, then leaned forward. He thought of the things he could do, the tension he could release. The fun he could have. A grin slid across his face. "Where do I sign up?"

* * *

**Seth**

"Yes, I hacked into the computer, and yes, I cracked the safe, but I'm telling you, I did not kill anybody."

"See, there's a problem with that, Seth. I mean, yeah, you come across very sincere, but the problem is, we have pictures. We have fingerprints. We have your head on a stick, kid, and all of this evidence is going to be us waving your head around in the courtroom. But, if you confess, you won't get the needle."

"I'm not confessing, because I didn't do it! I already confessed to what I did! I'm not confessing to anything I didn't do!"

Seth Rollins wasn't going to lie. He wasn't on the up and up. He did things that he shouldn't have done. He spent too much time with his fingers tapping on the keyboard, finding other people's secrets. He also had a knack for breaking into things, which came in handy when he was younger. Sometimes, his family needed a little extra money, and it wasn't that hard to get into the bank's computer system and add an extra zero or two so they could get by.

And yeah, it was fun doing it, getting one over on somebody. Those people he stole from always seemed to look at him and his family like they were dirt. They looked at his mom like she was any less than the women they went home to and that wasn't cool. So, Seth took them for what he could get. And he didn't always get away clean. He had a record, but it was a light record. The toughest thing on his rap sheet was fighting, and most of that had been in self-defense.

Seth could take care of himself. He was tall, but he wasn't hugely muscular. He was lean growing up, and even though he had filled out with muscle when he got older, there were still people out there that thought they could take him. They thought he was just a computer geek, just a geek in general, and they could make him do things he didn't want to do. They thought they could take from him. Those were the people who learned that Seth could throw a punch. And some martial arts training from an old family friend meant that he could throw some kicks, too.

But, he wasn't a murderer. Seth couldn't even kill an insect. He found a dog dying in the street, hit by a car with a driver who didn't give a damn, and he'd paid out of his pocket at the nearest vet to have him put down. Seth had to live on Ramen and mac 'n cheese for a while after that, but it was better than watching someone suffer.

He knew how things went on the streets, though, and he knew shit happened. And it kind of made him a hypocrite or a pussy or something, because he couldn't kill anything, but sometimes, he watched the news and knew that there were people who deserved to die. He heard about people getting taken out and he didn't feel bad about it.

But, that didn't mean that Seth was a killer.

"Look," he said, "I'm admitting what I did." He took in a deep breath, trying to make the shakes stop. But, his body still trembled, because, Jesus Christ, they were talking about the needle! "I hacked into the security system and took down the alarms. And yeah, I went in and cracked the safe. But, I swear to God, there was nobody in there, and when we left, no one was dead."

"Well, Seth, it sounds like somebody is trying to set you up, doesn't it?"

Seth's head whipped around to the face of the new voice. The woman coming into the room looked friendly, a lot friendlier than the beefy cop sitting across from him that kept trying to tell him that he killed somebody. For a minute there, he thought she was another cop, and it was time to play the game where she came in talking all sweet and got him to confess to something. But, another look at her said that she wasn't 5-0.

The new woman, the only person of any authority who seemed to have any sense in her head, wore skinny jeans tucked into tall boots with heels that were meant to give her a few more inches. She wore a blouse and jacket to dress it up. Her smile softened the hardness of her eyes, but the eyes were what gave her away as something other. She was trying to put him at ease by dressing like a regular, casual person, but the blonde that stalked his way was anything but casual. And she damn sure wasn't regular.

"I'm sorry, Detective, but Mr. Rollins is now in my custody." She laid down a neatly creased folded paper in front of him. The detective opened the paper and started to read, and she turned away from him. She looked at Seth and said, "You can come with me, now."

"Wait a minute." The detective stood up. "What are you, some kind of Fed?"

She laughed. "Oh God, no. I'm just an agent for a very important man who has friends that are more important than you. So important, in fact, that all of your charges against Mr. Rollins are being dropped as we speak, and we are free to go." She reached into her back pocket and came out with a card between her index and middle fingers. "Call this number if you have any questions."

The detective took the card, and the next thing Seth knew, the blonde had her hand on his arm. He looked up at her, grateful to be free, then suddenly very afraid, because her eyes said that he was anything but free.

"Come along, Seth," she said. "We have things to do."

Seth jumped up before anyone could change their minds and decide to put him in handcuffs and drag him to a cell down the hall. "Are you a lawyer?" Seth asked the blonde as she escorted him out of the interrogation room and they maneuvered their way through the police station.

She laughed, the same mocking laugh that she had given the detective. "Sometimes, Seth, I'm more likely to need a lawyer than I ever am to be one."

She led him outside to a waiting black luxury car. A man in a crisp black suit opened the door and she slid easily inside. The man jerked his head toward the car and, hesitantly, Seth moved in beside her. The door slammed shut the second he was fully inside.

The driver returned to his place behind the wheel and pulled the car into the Davenport, Iowa traffic. Only when they were three blocks away from the police station did the blonde turn to him and offer her hand. "Trish Stratus."

"Seth," he said, taking her hand. "Seth Rollins."

"Yes, Seth, I know." She smiled at him as she took her hand back. "Now, Seth, I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to listen, and when I'm done, we're going to go to your apartment, you will pack your bags, and we are getting out of Iowa. Do I make myself clear?"

"How do you know that I'm going to go anywhere with you?"

Trish smirked. "Do you want to go to jail, Seth?"

"No."

"Because let me assure you, while my employer and I know that you didn't kill anyone, the evidence said you did. And the evidence that is now being deleted from the Davenport Police Department servers and the evidence going missing from their evidence locker can all go right back where we found it."

Seth sighed. "I don't want to go to jail."

"Are you sure? I mean, you're looking at Murder 2, at the very least. If they try hard, they can probably get you on Murder One."

Seth sighed again. "I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to get anything worse than jail."

Trish reached out and her hand dropped to his knee. "That's what I thought," she said, "and that, you precious little genius with a motherboard, is exactly how I know that you're going with me."


	2. Meet the Bosses

Trish Stratus turned her eyes up to the office where her employer stood encased in glass. She still referred to him as her employer when she was out on recruitment missions, mainly because they recruited more men than women, and men preferred to know that, in their business, there was another man at the top. It was horribly sexist, but Trish had given up the fight to change a sexist's mind. And Paul had asked her to stop pistol whipping possible recruits because their brains were stuck in a misogynistic land filled with plebs.

Truthfully, however, they were more like partners. Yes, Paul did occasionally pull rank on her, but he tried to only do it when it was necessary. He listened to her input, and he cared what she had to say. Trish had been in this business a very long time. Obviously, Paul had been there longer, but over a decade of service had taught her quite a bit, and Paul would have been a fool to not take advantage of that. Of the many things she had learned in the last ten years about Paul Heyman was that he was definitely no fool.

Paul looked down at her from his office and, even at that distance, Trish saw the jerk of his head as he nodded to her. Trish reached out and put her hand on the bottom of the banister. She let her hand glide up the smooth metal as she went up. Her heels clicked against the steel steps. She felt the weight of Paul's eyes on her, watching her through the glass, as she came up. She also felt the eyes of the agents downstairs. They always worried when Trish went up those stairs with determination in her steps. More than once, it had meant that someone was going to be eliminated. Once, she had even been the one to do the eliminating.

The Canadian military was no different from the US military, in that it thought that women were a lot less capable than men. Trish had been forced to work hard to make her way up through the ranks, and even with all of her hard work, she had hit a ceiling. Small blonde women with ample T&A didn't get too far in the military. She would never command her own strike team with them. She would never get a solo assignment that didn't revolve around needing a sultry beauty to seduce a man into letting her get close enough. She didn't need to seduce him to get that close. She didn't even have to get that close. She just liked to get up close.

So, when Paul Heyman arrived on her front door the day before she was planning to sign her contract for another tour, she was convinced to go with him instead. He talked to her with respect. He talked to her the same way he would to a man he wanted to recruit. He didn't flirt with her. He didn't commend her physical assets. He pulled out his snake oil salesman best and told her that she was one of the best operatives he had ever seen, male or female, and he could use an operative like her.

Trish took the job, and it didn't take long before she rose in the ranks, and this time, the only ceiling was Paul himself. He was in charge of this outfit, and only a bullet to the base of his skull was going to get him out of that position. He had offered her chances at her own command when he expanded his operation. She could be Head of Operations at one of the other Shield outposts. Trish had considered it, but at the end of the day, she liked working with Paul, and he did go on vacation every once in a while. That was enough playing general for her.

Trish reached the top of the stairs and the door was open for her. She walked inside and closed the glass door behind her. Paul still stood at the window, but he turned to face her. "Well?"

"We have them," she said. Trish crossed the floor and took a seat in one of the chairs on the receiving end of the desk. Paul walked toward her, but he didn't take a seat behind his desk. He sat down in the chair opposite her.

Paul leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. "What do you think of them, now that you've met them?"

"I think they'll be useful," she told him. Trish leaned back and crossed her legs. She propped her elbows on the arms of the chair and let her hands dangle inside. "Rollins is green as hell, no hard background, but he's smart, and he doesn't want to go to jail. Ambrose is just bored, but once we get him going, I think he'll get his zest for life back. And Reigns…" She smirked. "Reigns is interesting."

"How interesting?"

"He's just barely there, I think. He has this focus, and it's the only thing keeping him from going on a rampage. We're going to have to be careful with him, though. His jobs are going to have to go around his rules. I don't care how badass a woman may be, he can't do it. If he does it, we're going to have a serial killer on our hands, and I'd really hate to have to decommission someone so interesting."

Paul leaned back in his chair, throwing his arms over the sides. He looked at her with a stern look, and not the kind that an employer gives to an employee that says something that doesn't meet his approval. He looked at her like a concerned parent, and that made Trish groan.

In the beginning, she hadn't fully trusted him. Snake oil salesman, and all that. She was never too sure when he was being sincere and when he was blowing smoke up her ass. Paul always had a play, and when he got rolling, his eyes shined brighter than his bald crown of his head under fluorescent lights.

But, she learned to trust him, and now, Paul Heyman was the closest thing that Trish had to family. That meant that sometimes, she told him too much, and other times, she didn't need to tell him for him to know too much. He saw through her, even when he didn't really see what was there. Paul had a tendency to think he knew more than he did, and it wasn't until he brought something up that Trish actually ended up proving him right. He was the master of creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Trish was pretty sure that this was going to be one of those times.

"What is that look for?" Trish asked him.

"I don't know that I really like the way you say interesting about Reigns."

Trish rolled her eyes. "Don't start, alright, Paul?"

"I'm just sayin', babe, I've seen that look in your eyes before." Paul was the only one that could get away with calling her babe, doll, or anything else. It was part of his charm, and he'd only begun to do it when they were as close as they could be to being equals. He waited until she was comfortable with him to treat him like a girl, and as much as it should have annoyed her, she did like it. Yes, she was a badass. Yes, she could take down some pretty big marks. But, she was still a woman, and it was nice to feel secure enough with someone to let herself be reminded of that.

"Could we not?"

"I'm just reminding you what happened the last time you found an operative interesting."

"I didn't find him interesting," she said, rolling her eyes. "I found him intriguing. And it doesn't matter what I found him, because he's gone."

"We didn't find his body."

"We found his gear and the lab proved that we found a hell of a lot of his blood. I don't know what they did with his body, but that's what it was when they were finished with him, Paul. A body. And since I know that he would have never defected…" Trish took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She exhaled and said, "Orton's dead."

"Maybe."

"This isn't a soap opera, Paul," she said, opening her eyes. She had to force herself to keep her hand at her side. She didn't need Paul to know that when she wore high collars, it meant that she was wearing Orton's dog tags around her neck. "People don't come back after three years, suddenly alive with a miraculous survival story. Orton's dead."

Trish told herself that every time she thought about him. Ever since she pulled the last operative off of the case. Ever since she pulled the last tech off of tracing him. Life was easier with Orton gone. Her life was more bearable.

It did help, though, that she had found the traitor that had blown his cover. Randy Orton was damn good at his job. There was a reason that he was one of the few operatives that actually went on full cover missions. Most of their operatives only had to go undercover for small amounts of time, a week at the most, but there were a few that had proven themselves. There were a few that changed their name and social security number on a rotating basis, because they were that good at being someone else. Most of the others would only have to pretend to be one normal person, if they ever proved themselves enough to live outside of the compound. With Orton gone, Trish's base only had two left. With Orton gone, Mizanin and Keibler were the best.

Trish had personally decommissioned the spy. Wade Barrett had been ready to move up in the organization, and he thought that getting rid of Orton would take care of it. He also thought that he was smart enough to get around one of their best techs. Kaitlyn had gotten a very well deserved vacation and promotion to Surveillance when she brought Barrett's name to Trish.

She had fun with him, too. He didn't get a poison pill or a quick bullet to the head. Barrett got all of the new liquids that filled syringes, and he got his cheeks split open by Orton's brass knuckles, that had sat loosely around Trish's fingers as she pounded into his face. In the end, she left him with a small cut that let him think about how low his attempts to get higher had gotten him while he bled out and his blood trickled down the drain in the floor.

She felt better after that. She would have felt even better if she'd found the people who had actually taken out Orton. After a while, though, Trish had to give up the search. There were jobs that needed to be done, money to be made, and that took precedence over her need for revenge. She just had to hope that she happened upon them later. Three years after Orton's death, she had so many much nicer things to use on them.

Paul cleared his throat and jerked Trish out of the memory of Barrett's blood sticking to her fingers. She looked up at him and returned his throat clearing with one of her own. "So, these boys," she said. "I'm getting them cleaned up. Ambrose, especially, wasn't in the best of shape when I got to him. He'd been in the hole for a while."

Paul looked like he wanted to continue their previous conversation, but he was not a stupid man. She gave him a hard stare that told him that she was not going to be talking about it anymore, and if he wanted to press the matter, she could test just how hard she had to kick him to make his fat ass go through one of his office windows.

He sighed. "I think I'll go see Rollins first."

"Good choice," she told him, and she wasn't just talking about his decision to see Rollins first. "Take out the hacking and other illegal things he does, and he's a good kid. If we keep his hands clean enough, he'll work fine, and he's the easiest of the three to get into the thick of things. Rollins does have the kind of nasty personality flaws that the other two have."

"I'll save Ambrose for last."

Trish nodded. "Need anything else from me?"

Paul pushed himself to his feet and walked around his desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a slim file folder. He tossed it on his desk and said, "Request from the Gamma office for Stacy and Miz. They'll be here in a couple of hours for debrief. Familiarize yourself and get them out in the field."

Trish slid the folder closer to her, then picked it up and sat it on her lap. "How long?"

"Short one for them. Six months, tops. They may not have to kill anyone." Paul shrugged. "It all depends on who wins the election."

Trish sighed. She grabbed the file on her lap and stood up. "Life was easier when we just fixed the election in the first place. We had a lot less wasted time for our operatives."

"We also had a lot more civil wars."

"We made more money on civil wars."

Paul winked. "We still make the same. I just charge 'em more to even things out." He laughed, loud and boisterous. "Get Stacy and Miz ready to go, then take the rest of the night. You've got a big day tomorrow."

Trish rolled her eyes. "Oh the joy. Introducing new recruits to the rules and regs." Trish turned and stalked across the floor. She pulled open the door, then stopped and turned to Paul. "Are we planning to tell Reigns that his cousin is the one that referred him to us?"

Paul thought about it for a moment, then said, "Eventually. How soon depends on him. Besides, Gamma might need him some day. For now, though? He got on our radar the same as everyone else."

Trish nodded. "We are oh so impressed by the wicked ways of humanity."


	3. Welcome to Shield

**Seth**

Seth scrambled to his feet as the doorknob turned. He hightailed it back across the room and dropped down on his bed just as the door opened. The man who walked in had a smile on his face and his cheeks almost looked cherubic. Did he pinch them before he walked in so they would be nice and rosy? He gave off a vibe like he was trying to be Jolly Ol' St. Nick in a suit, without the excessive hair all over his head and face. Well, without much hair at all, to be exact.

"Seth Rollins! Welcome to Shield!"

Seth rose an eyebrow. "Thanks?" The door slammed shut and Seth jumped. He'd never been quite as twitchy as he'd become since the cops hauled him in on that bogus murder charge.

Seth's eyes moved around his room. He probably should have called it a cell. Granted, it was nicer than what his old friends had described their cells to be like when they did time. It was clean. It was institutionally clean, as a matter of fact. The lights were bright. The TV mounted to the far wall had digital cable.

But, the door was still locked, and that made it a cell.

"Paul Heyman." He stepped up to Seth and put out his hand. Seth was cautious, but he reached out and took the offered hand all the same. Paul gave him a brisk shake. "Good to meet you."

"You, too?"

"Questioning thing, aren't ya?" Paul moved across the room and grabbed the metal back of the chair that sat at the equally shining metal desk. The legs of the chair scraped across the floor and Seth cringed. It was worse than nails on a chalkboard. It was more like the jingling of the jailer's keys, both annoying and terrifying all at once.

Paul put the chair down a few feet in front of Seth and took a seat. He was far enough away that their knees didn't touch, but close enough that Seth could see the tick in the corner of his mouth that told him that Paul's smile wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world.

"Uh huh. Are you my new boss?"

"That I am! Your new boss, leader, everything, that's what I am to you. And you—" Paul pointed at him, his finger bobbing up and down. "You just might be one of my most useful recruits to date."

"Look, man," he said, "it's like I told Trish. I didn't kill anybody, so if you pulled me out of jail for that, then I think we're both screwed, because I don't kill people."

"Who said anything about killing anyone?"

Seth rolled his eyes. "I've been called naïve a time or two, but let's face it, Mr. Heyman—"

"Paul, please."

"Paul," he said, "I'm not an idiot. I know dangerous people when I see them, and the kind of dangerous I saw around here? You kill people."

Paul took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Seth wondered how many people he had killed. Then he wondered if he was just the guy that told others to do it and wondered if he'd killed anybody at all. Seth wondered if he kept talking if he would be Paul Heyman's first kill.

"Look here, kid, I'm gonna explain something to you, okay?" The successful professional fell out of Paul's voice and posture. His words weren't so crisp, his tone holding a bit of an accent that might have been somewhere on or near the East Coast. Instead of sitting up, he slouched forward. He put his forearms on his thighs and let his hands dangle between his knees. His fingertips tapped, then stopped, then tapped again.

Seth nodded. "Okay."

"I run a business. Plain and simple, some people gotta die, and somebody's gotta kill 'em. This is how we stop World War 3. It's like the Cold War all over again, except everybody's playing a part, and they don't act cold."

"So, you're not going to give me a line that I'm fighting for my country?"

"Kid, you're fighting for every country. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't take just anybody. I've got operatives so good they could take out the President of the United States and nobody'd be the wiser, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it. I've got standards."

"So… we don't fight for the enemy?"

"Kid, I fight for the paycheck. I've got connections, and a lot of our work comes from them, but not all of it." He leaned back in his chair. "Now, we're not talking your average joe on the street. Your average joe don't have a clue what we do, and they never will. We're talking big fish, world changing fish, and so far, they've all been people who'd change the world for the bad. But, Kid, you don't have to worry about that 'cause that's not what I brought you here for."

"What did you bring me here for?"

"I brought you here 'cause you've got a brain on you. Hacking, Kid, that's what caught my eye. And you're not that bad at cracking a safe, either. Plus, while you're not a killer, you're a fighter, and I need a tech I can trust to go out in the field if necessary and be able to defend himself."

Seth thought about it for a second, not just what he was saying, but the ideas that were popping into his head. He thought about one in particular, and when it was the only one he was thinking about, he said it. "Are you the one that set me up?"

Paul laughed, a short bark that flew out of his mouth accompanied by a small bit of spittle. "Nah, Kid, that wasn't me. But, I know who did. You do, too. Your buddies wanted a clean getaway. That video they got?" He shrugged. "Put together before you even showed up at the building. Something personal on one of 'em. We can send somebody to get personal on them if you want. We take revenge seriously at Shield."

Seth didn't even have to think about it. He shook his head. "No." He'd have liked to see his so-called buddies go down for what they did, but he didn't want to see them dead. He especially didn't want their deaths on his conscience. Besides, they'd end up that way soon enough if they kept doing things like that.

Paul shrugged. "Your choice." He stood up and the chair scraped against the floor. Paul tugged at the lapels of his suit coat and looked down at Seth. "Here's the deal, Kid. You give me your loyalty and you've got mine for as long as I have it. You screw with me, you find out how good my people are. You got me?"

"Yes, sir."

Paul grinned. "That's what I like to hear. A kid that knows respect." Paul walked up to him and cuffed him on the shoulder. "Starting tomorrow, I think I'll even let 'em unlock your door." He winked at him. "Get some rest, Kid. You've got a long day ahead of you tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?"

"The rest of your life, Kid. And it'll be a great one, with great pay and a hell of a lot of fun if you let it be."

Paul turned to leave and Seth watched him walk across the room. Even if he had never said a word, his walk told Seth all he needed to know about him. He walked with a steady gait, even and cock sure. He was a man that knew he had the world by the short hairs and he twisted them whichever way he wanted, whenever he wanted. He was a man not to be messed with.

Paul struck the door hard and it opened for him. Before he stepped out, he turned back to Seth. "You got the look of somebody who has something to say, Kid."

Seth sighed. "Could you not call me Kid?"

Paul laughed. "Kid, I'll call you what I goddamn well please. Impress the shit out of me, Kid, and one day, you'll graduate to Seth." He turned and walked out the door.

And Seth flopped back on his bed and wondered why the world hated him so much.

* * *

**Roman**

The room was cleaner and nicer than the barracks, but at least he could walk outside in the barracks. Trish didn't say anything about locking him up. If that's what she was gonna do, she could have just him go to jail. The cops wouldn't have caught up with him on their own, but she knew enough about what he'd been doing to give him away.

She promised freedom and had only given him a jail cell.

Roman stood in the middle of the room and roared. His arms bent at the elbow, his fists clutched at his hips. His chest pushed out. The sound echoed throughout the room and bounced back on him. He wanted out. He wanted to do something. He wanted to do someone.

Roman stalked to one wall, and then to the other. He was like an animal, and he felt the walls of his cage pressing in around him. If he counted the time right, it was after 10pm. This is when he would have been outside hunting, looking for someone bad enough for him to take his psychoses out on, someone safe to erase so that he wouldn't go on a full on rampage.

The door opened when Roman was on his third charge back across the room. He stopped and turned. The man who came into his room didn't jerk back, didn't run back out, but he winced, and that was enough to tell Roman that he looked like he was ready to kill. He didn't bother changing his face.

The man eased into the room without opening the door fully, then closed it behind him. Roman heard the click as the door was locked. He felt the grin sliding across his face when he realized that he was being locked in the room with someone. Oh, the things he could do…

The man's face showed no fear, though, and that told Roman that this was not someone that he could kill. The lack of fear said that this was Trish's employer. The smile left his face.

"That's more like it. Sit down, boy."

Roman growled, but he did what he was told. This guy commanded respect. He stood with full self-assurance, and he looked at Roman like he was more dangerous than him. That didn't happen often. Whether this guy really was that dangerous remained to be seen, but this guy believed it, and a man with belief was one of the most dangerous things around.

Roman sat down at the foot of the bed. He turned angry eyes up to the man, who didn't even flinch. "Do you know who I am?" he asked him.

"You're the boss," he said.

"That's right," he told him. "I'm the boss. You can call me Mr. Heyman. I might let you call me Paul one day."

"What's that gonna take?"

"Me sure that when I walk out of the room, you're not imagining what I look like with my skin hanging off."

Roman grunted. Fair enough. He wouldn't want to be on first name basis with someone who wanted to put his insides on the outside, either. Roman folded his eyes and looked up at Mr. Heyman, waiting because he knew there was more to come.

"Now, let's get down to it," Heyman said. "You're here for one reason, and one reason only. Because you are a spectacular piece of killing machinery."

Roman grunted again. There was always someone around to find him useful. He should have been grateful for it. In a way, he was grateful for it. He had heard others complaining that the military had turned them into killers. The military had only turned him into a focused killer. They had given him an outlet for everything that he tried to keep buried inside of himself. He'd have stuck around if they weren't trying to fuck with his rules. If he stayed with them, they'd have ended up killing him. They wouldn't have been able to control him and he wouldn't have been able to control himself.

"That door," Heyman said, turning behind him, "is going to be locked every night until I'm sure you're not gonna go on a goddamned killing spree through my facility, you got me?"

"Yes, sir." He felt like grumbling, but the soldier in him snapped to and the words came out of his mouth crisp. He felt so damn military again, he almost saluted.

"Good. Now, ask."

Roman's head jerked to the side. "What?"

"You have questions. Ask them. I don't say that often, boy, so get 'em out while you can."

Roman only had one question. "Who do I get to kill?"

Heyman smirked. "Whoever we tell you to kill."

Roman glared. "You know I have rules. I have to have rules."

"I know about your rules, Reigns, and we'll follow 'em. I have rules of my own, the kind that you'll follow if you don't want to go toe-to-toe with some of my best. But, see, boy, I think you can be one of my best, if you really give it a go."

"What do I have to do to be your best?"

"It's more than killing," he told him. "You've gotta have a head on your shoulders. You have to play ball. We'll train you on everything that you need to know," Heyman said. "How far you go here depends on how well you take to the training."

Roman found another question. "Trish said you weren't military, but she could have been lying because she knows there was no way I was going back there. Truth time, Mr. Heyman. Is this military?"

"This is black ops, son," Heyman told him, "without Uncle Sam looking over your shoulder. There's no rank here but mine and my number two. There are no salutes, no shined up medals, and no accolades from POTUS. The only accolade you get is an extra zero on your paycheck."

Roman nodded. "I can do that."

"Can you? Because if you can't, I wanna know now. I don't waste my time, son," he told him. "It's too goddamned valuable."

"I don't waste mine, either," Roman said, the bass in his voice deepening. "And I don't like it wasted."

"Then we have an understanding." Heyman turned around and Roman was impressed. There weren't too many men who would turn their backs on him after looking into his eyes for more than half a second, especially when they were in a locked room.

Heyman stopped at the door and turned around. "Training starts tomorrow," he told him. "During daylight hours, the door will be open and you can roam freely through the areas that you are approved for. At night, you keep your ass in this room."

"So I'm in jail at night."

Heyman smirked. "Think of it as a security measure, for your protection as well as everyone else's. You're a werewolf, son, and until I fully trust you, every night is the full moon." He turned back around and pounded once, hard, on the door. The door opened and Heyman turned back to him, that smirk still adorning his face.

"Welcome to Shield, Reigns," Heyman told him. "Believe in us. Because we believe in you."

* * *

**Dean**

He turned off the lights, because it was easier on his eyes. He had been in the hole for so long, in the stinking dank depressing dark for so many never-ending days, that the light burned his eyes and made his head throb. The room smelled too clean, too. It smelled fresh. They must have found something to cover the smell of disinfectant, because a place that austere had to have been coated on a regular basis with a thin sheen of Lysol. With the lights, all of those scrubbed surfaces shone too bright, and they just made more light to give him pain.

So, he turned them off. Fuck 'em. They couldn't make him sit with the lights on. Right now, all they could make him do was suffer their cleanliness that was so foreign that Dean almost wanted to take a shit in the corner just to make the place feel more like home.

He used to have decent things. Not nice things, but decent things. Sure, over the years, he'd stolen enough that he probably could have gotten him a huge plasma TV and all kinds of nice middle class gadgets, but he'd blown that money on a lot of shit that was more important to him than nice middle class gadgets. There had been drugs for a while, lots of drugs, and look at that, when he was on the drugs, he didn't actually kill anybody. He hurt a lot of people, but he didn't kill anyone. There had been booze to go with the drugs, and again, the booze left people broken and maimed, but still alive, and it sent Dean moving on to the next town when someone ended up in the hospital for too long. To the next time, or to a stint in jail.

Where else had that money gone? Food. He'd needed food, and rent on a shitty apartment, but that was his cover, wasn't it? He was the kind of guy that people expected to leave in a rundown tenement in the projects with an assload of locks on the door but hardly any furniture. They expected him to be the guy with rats for friends and cockroaches for playmates. Well, they weren't! He killed the cockroaches and fed the rats to the neighborhood cats.

Truth was, Dean had never wanted nice things, because he knew that there were other assholes like him out in the world who would just break in and take the nice things. Nobody was taking anything from him ever again. He had enough of that shit when he was growing up, the runt that everybody beat up on and took from just because he was smaller than them.

But, he'd shown them, hadn't he?

The door opened and the only movement Dean made was to move his foot out of the stream of light that was sent his way. The light disappeared as the door was closed, and Dean stretched his foot back out.

"Too bright for you?"

Dean grunted. "I'll get used to it again. But yeah, it's too fucking bright."

His visitor grunted. He had hoped, when someone came to him, it would be the blonde from the jail. After locking him up instead of setting him free, the least they could do was send him somebody who smelled like freedom, and there was nothing like the scent of expensive perfume to say welcome back to the world, big boy.

Dean's eyes were well adjusted to the light and he could easily make out the large form of the man that walked toward the bed and sat down at the foot. He was either bald or his hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Dean would need more light to be sure. He looked like he was wearing a suit. Shit. They were probably gonna put him in a suit.

Fuck it. He could rock the shit out of a suit if it meant freedom.

"Dean Ambrose," the man said.

"Yeah, and you are?"

"Paul Heyman. Your new boss."

Dean grunted. He'd always hated bosses. They were always telling him what to do, even when he was already three steps ahead of them. Dean would have made a great boss. He knew when to shut the fuck up and let the people who knew what they were doing do their jobs. He probably could have had his own business, been a successful, productive member of society, but hell, man, what fun would that have been?

"You're supposedly my newest serial killer."

Dean grunted. "I'm not a serial killer. I don't fit the definition."

He fit some of the parts. There were more than three, a ridiculous number larger than three. He did have a cooling off period, but he always thought that criterion was full of shit, anyway. They said a cooling off period could be anything from a day to years. How the hell did a day count as a cooling off period? That was just taking a nap before starting again.

The important thing was that he didn't have a compulsion, and he didn't have a thing. He didn't kill brunettes who reminded him of the woman who broke his heart. He didn't kill lovers because he was a fat ugly piece of shit that couldn't get a woman. He didn't kill hookers because his mom brought johns home when he was a kid. Which she did, but that didn't matter. He didn't kill hookers. Okay, he didn't just kill hookers.

"No," Paul said, "you're not. You're just a mean son of a bitch, aren't you?"

Dean smirked. "Fuckin' A, boss man." He folded himself forward, bending his body in half, then pushed up with his hands on the floor. His legs slithered out from beneath him and stretched out until his sock covered feet hit the wall he'd been leaning against. Dean folded his hands on the floor and rested his cheek against the back of his hands. He faced Paul. "I hear you've got use for a mean son of a bitch."

"I do."

"And what do I get out of the deal?"

"Your life."

Dean barked a laugh that turned into a high-pitched twittering fit. Even as he laughed, his eyes stayed on Paul, waiting for the obligatory shudder that always came from Dean's bouts of crazy. Nothing came. He was a tough guy, that was for sure.

"Are you done?"

Just because he'd asked, Dean let it go on another fifteen or twenty seconds, before cutting it off quickly and sharply. "I'm done."

"You get good pay," Paul told him, "and a life worth living. How's that for you?"

"Not bad. You realize what I consider a life worth living."

"Of course." In the dark, Paul's teeth were bright white as he smiled, and that smile was as sinister as anything that Dean had ever put out in the world. "I don't take a killer off of death row unless I expect him to kill somebody."

"Who am I supposed to kill?"

"Anybody I tell you to kill."

Dean considered that for a minute. It took the pressure off of him. He didn't have to make the choice. He didn't have to watch the pretty prey walk past him on a daily basis and wonder which one would take the bait to give him a chance to fuck them up. There were days when he thought he'd never find a good one again. With this guy, there would always be another one.

"I can do that," Dean said.

"Good." Paul stood up from the bed and jerked on his suit coat. "Welcome to Shield, Ambrose."

Dean laughed. "Be careful, boss man. Disney might get you on copyright infringement."

Paul's laugh seemed to shake the floor as it boomed through the room. "You didn't strike me as a comic book man."

Dean snorted. "Don't judge me by my profile, Paulie," he told him. "There's a lot missing."

He didn't say anything about the nickname, but Paul did bristle. Dean only smirked. He loved finding new ways to aggravate people, to provoke them.

Paul turned toward the door and knocked hard once. The door opened, and the light came in again. Dean rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, avoiding the harsh line of white. He heard his new boss's voice as he said, "I can trust that the possibility of mayhem means I don't have to hide the sharp objects?"

Dean grunted. "Like I told the babe, your offer makes me a little less suicidal."

"Good. I'd hate to have wasted a favor."

Dean listened to the scuffle of Paul's feet against the floor as he walked out the door. Dean peeked an eye open and was actually surprised. The door was still open. "Huh," he muttered as he pulled himself up and moved back against the wall. He pressed his back against the wall and stared at the line of white that came to him.

Freedom was that way. Follow the yellow brick road to home, Dean. But, it was so fucking bright.

Eh. Maybe later.


	4. There's Always Work To Do

They were waiting for her by the time Trish actually made her way into her office. Trish preferred to prep herself in a room with less windows, less watching eyes. Her relationship with Randy had been too open, too obvious, even when they were pretending that there was nothing going on. By the time they decided not to care, almost everyone was already in the know.

People watched her moves when he first disappeared, and Trish was pretty sure that was Paul's doing. He wanted to make sure that his number two didn't completely lose her mind or go on too big of an unsanctioned killing rampage. After she took care of Barrett, the eyes watching her seemed to wonder if her taste of bloodlust had ignited something in her. She had a reason to take out Barrett. Would she need a reason to dispatch the next one?

Three years had passed, three years and four months, and the eyes didn't watch her quite as hard. It was why, despite her grumbles at training new operatives, she liked to get new recruits in. They didn't know her history. They never heard of Randy Orton, and they would only hear of him as a ghost through the halls, the stories that would pass about his exploits in the field and a warning as to what happens when someone decided they wanted to move up the wrong way. They wouldn't stare at her. They would have reasons not at all connected to Randy that made them worry that Trish might put a stiletto in their jugular.

But, still, eyes moved up to her office, and Trish found that she couldn't work, couldn't concentrate. So, she found an empty room, turned on the large screen TV mounted on the far wall, and flopped down on the bed. She flipped through the file quickly at first, then more slowly. Trish always went over a new file four times. She had found that anything less than that and she missed something, and anything more, her mind started adding things that weren't there. Four was the perfect number.

Now, four reads and a twenty minute power nap later, Trish stepped into her office and closed the door. The eyes were already on the office, but at least this time, it wasn't for Trish.

Mike Mizanin and Stacy Keibler were now the best out of Shield's Alpha office. They were celebrities among the new recruits. They were hardly ever seen and when they were, everyone was aware that something exciting must have been on the horizon. The operatives grumbled a little, because they knew that they weren't going to get in on it. Unless absolutely necessary, Mizanin and Keibler worked alone. But, the techs loved it. They always got to use some of their best gadgets with those two.

They looked like a picture pose as Trish walked up behind them, unmoving mannequins that sat in place to set the lighting. Mizanin at in the chair. Keibler stood to his right, her hip leaning against him, her left arm reaching around him until her wrist could rest on his shoulder. Trish had seen very few people who could go as still as the two of them.

Trish walked around them, and their expressions were a lot more playful. The smirk on Mizanin's face said that he was ready to have some fun. Keibler mirrored his smirk, and her fingers danced lightly against his lapel. Trish and Paul hadn't been too sure how it would work out, letting two of their best operatives marry for real, instead of just using it as a cover in the outside world. Both had kept their eyes on them, just in case something went south and they had to be decommissioned. But, Mizanin and Keibler had surprised everyone. They played off of each other so well.

Trish dropped the file folder on her desk as she lowered herself down to the chair. "You two look ready to work," she said as she settled back into her seat.

"Vacation is nice, but Miz gets bored." Stacy giggled and tapped her fingers against her husband's cheek. She could be cute, make her way into adorable territory, and that was one of the things that made her so good at her job. No one would know the brutality that lied beneath her visage of adorability, not until she had slit their throat, and by then, it was too late.

Mizanin chuckled. "What can I say? I love my job."

"I know you do," Trish said. "I just wish this job was for us." The pair in front of her each rose a curious eyebrow, and Trish pushed the folder across the table. "You're being loaned out to Gamma. Take a seat, Stacy. We've got business to discuss."

Sighing, Keibler dragged her arm back, letting her fingers glide alone Mizanin's body until her arm fell to her side. She stepped around him, grabbing the folder from Trish's desk as she passed in front of him. But, she didn't keep moving to the seat beside him. Her body dropped down, like a marionette whose strings had just been cut, and fell down into Mizanin's lap. Her extra long legs stretched out in front of her for half a beat before her knees bent. She crossed her legs, left over right, and leaned into him.

If Trish didn't know the two so well, she would have thought they were putting on a show. But, this was just them. Even before they had started dating, long before they got married, they were just at ease with one another.

Mizanin's left arm went around Keibler's back. She settled the file folder on her lap, and he used his right hand to flip through the pages. His eyes caught the duration expectation first. "Less than six months?"

Trish sighed. "Paul has decided that we're going to try to fix less elections and just go with assassinations after the fact."

"So, this whole thing might end up being a waste of our time," Keibler said, turning her eyes from the file to Trish. Her long blonde hair slipped over her shoulder. Mizanin pushed it behind her back. "Gamma doesn't have anybody that needs a long vacation?"

"Apparently not," Trish said with a shrug. "From what we've gathered, all of the operatives that are experienced in this type of thing are out on jobs, and Rock knows that we can trust the two of you to actually walk away if it turns out that the people made the right decision."

Mizanin smirked. "Do they ever?"

Trish returned his crooked grin. "Sometimes. He has faith in the people that we just do not." Trish let the smile fall from her lips as she shrugged. "Just make the best use of your time. There might be intel that you can get while you're there. Keep your eyes and ears open. If we call you home without getting a kill, I'll make sure to find something extra juicy for you."

"Do we have covers in place?" Mizanin asked.

Trish shook her head. "Rock's people were going to come up with something for you, but he decided to let you play it however you want."

Keibler bit her bottom lip and again went from hardened operative to adorable young woman. "Can I play hired escort? I can do coquette. You love it when I do blushing coquette."

Mizanin looked up at her and the grin he gave her held only a tint of sinister. His eyes flashed with excitement over the idea of playing games with her. He tapped her cheek with his finger. "Whatever you want, sweetheart."

She clapped her hands, flailed her feet, and Trish couldn't help but laugh. Keibler and Mizanin weren't just an example of how to do the job. They were an example of how to live with yourself and with someone else, when the job was over. They were given outlets for the harder, more dangerous side of their personality, and that let them actually live within society. It let them thrive. This was what she wanted for her operatives. She wanted them to be able to live. Not all of them were able to succeed in that. Too many of them still lived at Alpha's base. But, Mizanin and Keibler gave her hope that the ratio of living life to surviving would stay high, and in the favor of living life.

Keibler pressed a kiss to Mizanin's lips then turned back to Trish. She wiped the giddiness from her face and replaced it with her business countenance. "We need Kaitlyn," she said. "I'm sure Gamma has really good people, but she knows us. We trust her."

Trust hadn't been high in Shield for a while after Orton was taken, and when his blood was found- All business had been put on hold for a month while Paul and Trish went through the organization with a fine tooth comb. The only business that was handled was personal. If it wasn't about finding Orton, or whoever had blown his cover, it wasn't done. When Kaitlyn came forward with Barrett's name, it had put her in a special place. Now, when Mizanin and Keibler went out, she was the only one that handled their gadgets.

Trish pulled her chair forward and pressed a button on her phone. "Kaitlyn? Can you come up to my office, please?"

"Yes, ma'am," her voice came through. "On my way."

Trish turned back to the pair in front of her. "I can have her get you set up, and when you get to Gamma's office, I can have her conferenced in, but I can't send her with you this time. I have new recruits, and one of them is for her."

Keibler pouted. "Well, that's not fair."

"Yes, I know," Trish said, "but neither is it fair that I have to train three new recruits at the same time." She sighed. "Kaitlyn is one of our few techs that can take care of herself in the field. We think one of these recruits will add to that pool. So, I need her here until he's ready to go."

A knock at the door rose Trish's eyes. She waved a hand and Kaitlyn stuck her head inside. She wore her hair loose, and the similarities between the split blonde and black in her hair reminded Trish of Rollins. They had similar taste in hair products. Hopefully that would be a jumping point for them to hit it off. Trish didn't mind training new recruits, she actually liked getting into the mix with the newbs, but three at a time was going to be rough, especially since one of them was a serial killer, and she would love to be able to hand one over to someone else.

Keibler turned a wide smile to Kaitlyn. "How's my best tech?"

A wide grin spread across Kaitlyn's face as she came into the room, closing the door behind her. "Stacy! Miz! We've got work to do it, I take it?"

"Only some," Keibler told her. "Trish won't let us take you with us."

"Well, that's kind of a bummer." Kaitlyn sighed. Her eyes went past Keibler and Mizanin, to Trish. "I take it, then, that means one of the newbs is mine?"

Trish nodded. "You get started with him tomorrow," she told her. "Today, you get to prep Miz and Keibler before they head out to Gamma. You'll be in contact with them, though, so don't be too sad."

"I'll try not to be." Kaitlyn grinned, then jerked her thumb behind her. "I'm gonna go start getting stuff. Usual surveillance?"

Keibler nodded. "And if you have anything new, I'll take that, too."

"Gotcha. Catch me down in Tech when you're done here."

Kaitlyn made her exit, and Keibler's head turned back to Trish. Her eyes looked concerned. She tapped Mizanin on the head and he looked up at her. Something went back and forth between them, and it ended with a nod from Mizanin. Keibler turned back to Trish. "Business is over, right?"

Trish was wary. "Yeah."

"So, can we a little less professional and a little more friendly?"

"I don't know if I want you to be more friendly."

Keibler sighed. "I'm gonna move from Keibler and Mizanin and Boss Lady territory into Stacy, Miz and Trish territory, and I'm going to ask… Are you okay?"

Trish jerked in surprise. That was unexpected. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Miz cleared his throat and said, "Randy's birthday is coming up."

Trish bristled. She had actually managed to put that out of the forefront of her mind, but it must have still been in her subconscious. That would explain why, for the past few days, she'd felt the need to wear high collars so she could hide Randy's dog tags around her neck. And if Stacy and Miz had realized it, Paul probably had it circled on his calendar. No wonder he gave her three new recruits to train at once. He wanted to keep her mind focused.

Nobody wanted a repeat of last year, apparently. Last year had gotten Ziggler transferred to Delta.

Trish ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "I'm fine. Really. Stacy, Miz, it's great that you're thinking about me, but I'm good. I'm okay."

"We just…" Stacy shrugged. "We're going to be gone, out of touch, so we just wanted to make sure that you were okay, that we at least asked before we left."

Stacy and Miz were the closest things Trish had to friends, anymore. She'd had a few people on the outside she had connected with back in the beginning, when she first came to Shield. But, as she rose in the ranks, she found that she was only playing at being friends with them. It was a bitch thing to say, but basically, their lives bored her and she just didn't care what was going on with them. Now, she didn't even pretend.

She still wasn't quite sure how she ended up with these two as friends. Maybe they gravitated to each other when Randy was around, when he and Trish were officially a couple, because Stacy and Miz were the only other closely linked couple in the building. Whatever had caused it, they had been there for her over the last three years. Stacy had even offered to take care of Barrett for her, in case it was too personal. And Miz had understood enough to tell Stacy that was exactly why Trish was doing it. Because it was too personal.

"I'm fine, guys, really." Trish pushed herself up to her feet. "Don't worry about me. Just bring me back good stuff to use."

Stacy looked as though she didn't believe her, but she didn't really have a choice but to move on. Trish was on her feet, and that was the signal that the meeting was over.

Stacy stood up and Miz followed suit. He pulled the lapels of his suit coat together. Stacy's arm slid around his waist. Miz gave Trish a nod. "Keep your calendar free. We'll do lunch when we get back."

Trish grinned. "Right after debrief. Now, get going before Kaitlyn bursts a blood vessel. You know how excited she gets when she's putting stuff together for you two."

Stacy grinned. "I know. It's adorable, isn't it?" She flapped her hand at Trish in a goodbye wave. Miz gave her a nod. Trish returned both, and the two turned and made their way out of the office.

Trish stayed behind her desk until they were gone, and she figured they were halfway down the stairs. Only then did she move to the windows that surrounded her office. A few eyes were looking up at her. Were they eyes of the few veterans left still living at base who remembered that Randy's birthday was coming up? Or were they just nosy nellies that wanted to know what was so important that Miz and Keibler had been brought in to speak to the lady at the top?

Trish sighed. It didn't really matter why they were looking at her, just that they were. She stepped to the side and hit a button on the wall. Trish watched the glass as it converted from a thin clear pane to a smooth sheen of black that kept the outside world out. She was going to need some privacy. Because she'd just been reminded of Randy's birthday.

And for a little while, she was going to have hope again. She preferred to suffer her hope in private.


	5. Crazy Cakes

Dean paused, turned his head to the side, and listened. He thought he heard a woman's voice. Possible. He heard women's voices a lot. When he heard them, though, he was usually asleep, or had zoned out to the point where he hovered in a kind of limbo, floating in a dark sea of nothing just an inch above sleep and an inch above awake.

Dean was pretty sure he was awake.

"Psst! Hey! You!"

There it was again. He turned, a slow pivot on his right heel. He stared at the door he thought the voice was coming from, but he didn't see anything. The light was off in the room. Interesting. When he was in jail, he swore that he didn't need the pills that they pushed at him, the pills that he instantly threw back up the second he was alone again. Now that no one was shoving anti-psychotics down his throat, Dean wondered if maybe he needed them after all.

"Hey!" This time, he did see something, the top of a head that bounced up then fell back down. "Over here!"

Dean inched toward the door. He lifted his right foot to push him forward and dragged his left foot behind him. He looked around the hallway. Test? Maybe. Spiked his food? Again, maybe.

"Over here! Come on!" The head popped up again, and as Dean drew closer, he could see her dark hair bouncing as she popped up and dropped back down. "Come on! Over here!"

Dean said, fuck it. If somebody was playing with him, he might as well go along with it. What else did he have to do? Everybody around this place was either asleep or working, and those who were awake weren't paying him any attention. Dean wasn't their problem until tomorrow. Tonight, he was on his own.

Dean stepped up to the door and looked into the window. From what he could see, the room didn't look that much different than his own. But, then again, he could have been projecting and making assumptions. Other than the glint of the metal bed as the light from the hallway went into the room, Dean couldn't really see anything. He just figured that everything looked alike in this place.

"Hey! You're a newb, right? One of the ones Trish brought in today?"

Dean grunted. "So that's her name, huh." He had hoped to get it out of the blonde herself at a later date. "How many did this Trish bring in today?"

"You and two others," the woman inside the room told him. Dean started to question just how old the chick on the other side was, though. She sounded pretty young, but he figured a place like this would at least want 'em old enough to vote. Or maybe they picked 'em up young and kept 'em locked up until they were trained. And if that was the case, what had taken them so fucking long to come and get him?

"Can you unlock my door?"

Dean smirked. "Why would I do that?"

"Because it's not fair that I'm locked in here all night? Especially since I'm not even new. I've been here longer than you have, and you get to run around free."

"And how long is longer than me?"

"Long enough that I've actually been on two missions."

"Why are you locked in?"

"I tried to kill somebody. I don't know. They said I tried to kill somebody. I wasn't trying to actually kill him. I was just trying to prove that I could sneak into an operatives room in the middle of the night and slit his throat and nobody would ever be the wiser. Kinda proving security, ya know?"

"And how'd that work out for you?"

"He woke up while I was taking a picture of myself faking cutting his throat. Paul believes me when I say I wasn't really trying to kill Daniel Bryan, and Trish kind of believes me, but people are scared, so my punishment is that I get locked in my room at night. And I guess Bryan's punishment is that damn goat beard that's covering his face right now."

Dean's shoulders shook in silent laughter. He dropped his head forward and pressed it against the small glass window. He didn't know what was behind that door. For all he knew, there could be a deadly midget waiting behind there, ready to slash his throat with a bed spring. Whatever she was, though, she was definitely amusing, and sounded like his kind of girl.

"So, what happens if I let you out?"

"Um… we go play?"

Dean snorted. "I don't think they want the kind of play we might do together."

"Hm, well, probably not without orders to do it first. I can show you around the place. I know all the nooks and crannies. Come on, man, let me out. It's boring in here!"

He probably should have just left her in there and gone about his business. He didn't need some crazy chick showing him around. He had enough crazy of his own, and he was pretty damn sure he could find his way back to his cell without an escort.

But, this chick intrigued him. She wasn't all there, and she was still alive. She'd tried to take the head off of one of their own in his own bed, and all they did was lock her up. Sounded like a useful chick, to him. And yeah, maybe she was a twisted midget with a sexy ass voice, but something told him this place wasn't in for physical freak shows. They put out an image, and that image wasn't sideshow.

"Sorry, babe," he said, "I don't have a lock pick kit on me."

"That's the beauty of it!" She laughed, and it sounded maniacal. And it also made his dick get hard. Fuck, it had been too long since he'd been around a woman. "The doors only lock from the inside. I don't know how they do it, but on your side, all you've gotta do is turn the knob."

Dean grunted. He probably should have left her there, but- Yeah, he didn't do very much that he should have done. That tended to get him in a lot of trouble.

His head still leaning against the glass, Dean reached up and wrapped his hand around the doorknob. He gave it a half turn to the right, a quick jerk, then slowly continued the turn until he heard the lock click. The door almost popped itself open, pushing against him as the lock released. Dean pulled the door open and stepped back.

The woman that came bouncing out of the room wasn't what he was expecting, but was definitely what he'd been hoping she would be. She was a tight, tiny body with the face of the girl next door. Her brown hair fell down to her waist. Her eyes, though, were what he expected. They shined bright with crazy, and it kind of reminded Dean of what his reflection had looked like years ago, back when crazy was a fun new thing instead of a regular state of being.

She pointed at him. "You," she said, "are awesome." She put her hand out to him. "AJ Lee, at your beck and call." She winked and laughed, and Dean thought she probably should have been quieter if they didn't want to get caught.

"Dean Ambrose," he said. He slapped her hand, because he wasn't a shaking kind of guy. He'd yet to have a handshake that didn't end with him getting screwed.

"You're an awesome kinda guy, Dean Ambrose." AJ winked at him. "Oh my God, we could get into all kinda trouble around here. Everybody's asleep in this wing," she told him. "Full of people either going to bed early or locked in front the night. I heard somebody say that one of the other newbs got locked in overnight, too."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "They make it a habit of bringing dangerous people around here, huh?"

"Of course. We wouldn't be useful if we weren't dangerous." AJ closed the door to her room, then leaned back against it. She looked Dean up and down, and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. Usually, he hated being sized up, but with this chick, he didn't know if she was sizing up or admiring. Admiration, he didn't mind. Admiration, he kinda dug.

"So, are you a killer?" AJ asked him. Dean glared at her. "It's cool. I'm a killer. I think the guy they locked up is a serial killer. You ever been in jail? I bet that's where they got you from. You don't look military to me, and the way you squint your eyes even though this light out here isn't that bright makes me think you're used to it being darker. The hole, maybe?"

"What would you know about the hole?" Dean bristled, and either AJ didn't notice or she didn't care. What the fuck did people know about the shit that went on down there? They watched some TV, caught a couple movies, and thought they knew what went on. Oh, you watched Stallone in _Lock Up_ and now you know what it's like? Not a fucking chance, sweetheart. You don't know what it's like to live your life in the dark, to have the only light be a warning that someone is coming, and not knowing what was going to happen when that person came in the room.

He felt the anger growing in him, the resentment starting to rise. Dean pushed it down, forced it back to the place where he kept it hidden. That shit was supposed to be in reserve, only to be seen when he wanted to freak somebody out, when he wanted somebody to back the fuck up and watch the terror in their eyes as they tried to figure out if he was going to kill them now or later. It wasn't supposed to come out on his own. Fuck that shit, man. He had better control than that.

Dean looked up and AJ must have seen something. She was quiet and she was looking at him, but she didn't bring it up. She didn't look scared. She just looked like she was living a life of _Are you done, yet?_ Dean nodded at her and she smirked.

"I know that in women's prisons, it's a lot cleaner, mainly because we actually have a toilet in ours. And we go in it, instead of being contrary for the hell of it and going on the floor."

Dean snorted. She had a point. He didn't know, obviously, what it was like in a women's prison, but he knew that he'd kicked the jailer's fucking bucket across the floor, whipped out his dick with the guy standing there and pissed on his boots. Then he'd gone in the corner and taken a shit just for the fuck of it.

And eventually he'd cleaned it up, because Dean Ambrose was not a man that thought his shit didn't stink.

"So yeah, this place?" AJ pushed off of the door and hopped. Like, legit, that bitch hopped. What he hell, man? "It's a lot cooler than prison."

"Even though they lock you up at night."

She shrugged. "Even though." She shrugged again, then clapped her hands together. "Okay, then, let's go. There's a ton of stuff to look at, and we don't have too long to look at it. Paul gets up like super early, and Trish, well, from what I hear, she hasn't really slept in years. If anybody else catches us out, it's no big deal. If Trish or Paul catch us…" Another shrug, then AJ was off, her hands clasped behind her back, skipping down the hall.

Dean called out, "Hey!" She stopped and turned to him. "What if they catch us?"

"I hear Trish likes to play with bad boys and girls who don't do what their told." She twisted from side to side, her hair floating behind her head. "So, come on, already, so we can get back before we become a bad boy and girl who doesn't do what their told."

AJ laughed, and then she was off again, skipping, and if Dean was standing next to her, he was pretty sure she would have been signing or humming a song. Because that chick was nuts. And she was kinda hot.

Yup, it had been way too long since he'd been around a woman.


	6. Early to Rise

Roman tested the knob and it turned easily. Heyman had told him the door would be locked overnight, while the others slept, but it wasn't overnight anymore, was it? Though his room had no windows, Roman knew that day had come. His body told him that the sun had risen over the horizon and the sounds from the hallway told him that people were up and moving.

He pulled the door open slowly. There was a low thrum of energy in the hallway as people moved back and forth. Though he was assured that this wasn't military, Roman had still expected to get up and see people in uniform moving through the halls, maybe not camo or fatigues, but he still expected some kind of emblems, at the very least, at the most, coordinating in-house uniforms. Instead, what he got were people dressed like they were preparing for any normal day. Some were dressed in business casual, and he guessed they were people running things or office personnel. Most were in various stages of street clothes, jeans and t-shirts, some sweat pants. Add in the bright light, and it was more like he'd just walked into a mall instead of the hallway of a secret base of assassins.

Roman looked down at his own clothes and grunted. His black cargo pants were slightly wrinkled. His blank tank top wasn't wrinkled, though that was probably because they all stretched out across his chest and back when he put it on. His boots were scuffed and he sighed. He usually kept them at a high military shine, but he'd gotten caught up in stalking that last guy, and when he was in that mode, he didn't pay much attention to his surroundings.

When he wasn't on a mission, though, he kept things impeccable, up to military standards. When he was pretending to be a normal joe like everybody else, his pants were always pressed, his shirts always hung neatly in his closet. His apartment was vacuumed twice a day. He cleaned his bathroom thoroughly three times a week. This last time, though… Roman shuddered as he thought about the condition his apartment had been left in.

Roman left the door open behind him as he stepped out into the hallway. He was an imposing figure, and while he could the traditional standard of tall, dark and handsome, he more easily fell into tall, dark and deadly. Eyes fell on him in the hallway, and he knew that the latter was what most of them were thinking. A few women looked his way, and while the former flashed across their eyes at first, the latter was what they eventually settled on, too.

Roman tried not to focus too hard on any of them. It had been a while since he'd been out on a hunt, and he could feel the need rising within him. If he looked at any person for too long, they might ping his radar. He wasn't allowed to bring any of his gear with him, and he wouldn't be able to do a background search on anyone. They hadn't let him bring any of his toys, and Roman felt naked without his K-Bar. If anything happened, he would have to use his hands. He didn't have a problem with that. He was good with his hands. But, that K-Bar was his security blanket. Maybe, when he was trusted, they might let him have it.

People moved along, took their eyes from him, and Roman continued to not look at them. He didn't bother asking for directions from anyone, because he had no particular destination in mind. He roamed the halls, taking in the ambience, getting a feel for the place. The underground section of the base was a maze, but upstairs, from what he had seen, looked like any other office building. He wondered how long it would be before he was allowed up there.

The hardest part of his psychosis for Roman was knowing that he wasn't trusted, knowing that people were always watching him. The eyes on him made him feel like prey, which only served to make him angry. Paranoia told him that someone was looking for his weak spot, watching his movements, writing down his schedule. So, Roman didn't keep a schedule. He always took a different route home from work. He went up three floors on the elevator then came down the stairs to go to his apartment, in case he had a tail. He was always on guard, and if they weren't watching him, he would have been able to relax.

God, Roman wanted to be able to relax. He wanted to just take a break. Maybe this would be his chance. He initially took the deal because he wanted the freedom to kill without putting all of the work in it, without worrying that he would be caught. He wanted the license to kill that they were offering him. But, the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how much he wanted a vacation. Killing for a living meant that he got a vacation from his serial disease. His rules put a curb on who he killed, how often he killed. He hoped that having someone take the decision out of his hands would help him curb it more.

Roman was aware of his psychosis enough to know that it wasn't right. That was what made him put the rules in place in the first place. He enjoyed killing. He enjoyed the hunt. He enjoyed the fear in his prey's eyes. He knew that wasn't normal, though, and because of that knowledge, he was left conflicted. He enjoyed something that was wrong far too much, and the little bit of conscience he had left made him feel guilty. A break from the stalking meant a break from a guilt.

Maybe it would even mean a break from the loneliness, because a life like his, well… He wasn't that guy that TV shows put on who had a ton of friends and family that all said they didn't think he would ever do anything like that. Roman had distanced himself from his family, because they all knew what he was capable of, and his father and uncle knew what he liked to do. His father looked at him like he was disappointed, and since Roman loved his father as much as a guy like him could, he didn't want to have to crush his windpipe or press his eyeballs into his head.

And friends, well… Yeah. Friends just weren't going to happen. There weren't enough people out there like him for Roman to have anything in common with most people. He had tried to join a group of vets, but while they shared the same problem of fitting into society, it was for completely different reasons. They all thought that he was just being anti-social. Roman just couldn't tell them the truth, that while they complained that Uncle Sam made them killers, Roman was depressed because Uncle Sam wouldn't play by his killing rules.

Girlfriends didn't happen, either. That was too much work, keeping up his routines, planning his murders, while trying to hide everything from a woman. That wasn't to say that Roman didn't get his needs met. He had a few regular girls he went to when he was in need, and as long as he paid them well, they didn't ask him about the dark stuff under his nails that he hadn't completely cleaned out before coming to them.

Roman heard grunts, and he followed the sound. He couldn't decipher the gender, but as he grew closer, he could tell the male versus the female. His eyes were straight ahead, seeing just enough to move out of the way of people coming down that hallway. He listened. He let his ears guide him around the corner and down the hall. The hall ended at a large, glass encased gym. Roman continued moving forward. He opened the door and stepped through.

This was a practice room. There were pairs spread throughout, throwing punches and each other. Some of the pairs used mats. His eyes caught a flash of blonde hair, and the familiar curve of a body. Trish was paired with a guy, and they weren't using mats. The guy short compared to Roman, but as they both faced each other, he was taller than Trish. His hair was cut short, but not close to his head. It moved around when he shook his head. He looked young, and for the most part in shape.

Roman stayed at the back of the gym. He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. If Trish knew he was there, she didn't show it. She kept her eyes trained on her opponent. The guy, though, he felt the eyes on him and his head turned a quick second. That was all Trish needed to swoop in. Before her opponent's head was back in her direction, she had gone down in a squat, thrust out her leg and spun. Her opponent toppled to the floor and Trish jumped up to her feet. He couldn't make out her words over the din of the others practicing, but from her posture and what he could catch reading her lips, she was admonishing him for taking his attention off of his opponent.

Roman hadn't practiced much hand-to-hand combat in the military. He'd done enough to know how to handle himself if he didn't have a weapon, but his superiors had focused him on weapons. They had seen what he did when he actually got his hands on someone naturally, and they hadn't wanted to risk him going too far with a sparring partner. Besides, Roman's size coupled with a natural ability to take someone down quickly were enough that he didn't need that kind of practice as much as others.

He watched Trish and her opponent circle one another. He watched the guy go in and Trish swipe at him, as though she had a knife in her hand. Trish did a backflip and the guy rushed her. They twisted, they tangled, and the guy got her by the arm. He tossed her across the floor. Trish landed with her hands planted on the floor, her legs stretched out wide. She was good. Roman wanted to get in there with her, see how she moved with someone his size, see if her speed and agility were a match for his size and intensity.

What struck him most about her was the look in her eyes when she circled her opponent, when she looked for the best place to strike. Roman had once caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective glass of a dark storefront when he was stalking his prey one night, and it had taught him to adjust his expression, to look less menacing. That was the same look he saw in Trish's eyes. The look that said that someone was about to breathe their last breath, and it was going to be fun taking it away from him. She was a killer. Probably not of Roman's variety, because there were very few of those, but she was a killer, nonetheless, and from the looks of her, she was very good at it.

Roman watched the rest of the match with his eyes focused on her. The guy she fought must have been pretty damn green, because it didn't take her long to take him down. She got him on his back with her hand at his throat. The only thing more interesting about the whole thing than Trish's predatory look was the fact that she wasn't breathing very hard when it was over. She had managed to take a man down with as little physical exertion as possible. If they were going to teach him that, Roman was glad that he'd taken the offer. It would make his getaways so much easier if he didn't have to stop and catch a breath.

Trish stood up and put her hand out. Her opponent took the offered hand and Trish helped him to his feet. She spoke to him, slapped him on his arm, and only when she had dismissed him did she turn her eyes to Roman. The knowing look told him that she was aware of him the entire time.

Roman watched her walk toward him, slow and steady. Her hips moved from side to side as she walked, not an intentional sway of her hips as much as the natural rhythm of her body. As she came closer, he saw the sweat that beaded her chest and arms. He saw her hair waving around the temples from sweat coating her scalp. He saw her shoulders rise and fall. She was breathing a little harder than she would have been at complete rest, but still, not nearly as much as she should have been after a fight.

Trish stopped in front of him and pursed her lips. "Didn't think you would be up this early."

Roman grunted. "I get up when the sun does. Guess it rose early today."

"A little." She ran her hands through her hair and Roman watched her body arch. He watched the muscles tighten and flex beneath her skin. "Is that what I have to look forward to?"

She dropped her arms and smirked. "Probably not with me. You're a little big to be throwing me around the room."

He grinned. "I'll be gentle." He wasn't trying to be flirtatious. It was just the only thing he'd found that kept his mind off of killing a woman that stood in front of him. The more attractive she was, the more he wanted to put his hands around her throat. He didn't know why, couldn't understand it. He'd never been rejected or damaged by a beautiful woman, by any woman at all. The only idea he could come up with was that it was his body's twisted form of arousal. He found that if he was more casual, just flirted instead of trying to be a gentleman, he was less likely to want to kill her.

"We'll see," she told him with a smirk. "But, today? No, you don't have that to look forward to. You have paperwork to look forward to. And you have the fun of rules and regulations." Roman groaned and Trish laughed. "Believe me, I have no more fun teaching it than you will have learning it, but it must be done. Can't have you out there doing whatever you want, now can we?"

"You could, but I don't think it would be good for business," he said.

"Exactly." Trish grinned and folded her arms. She looked at his eyes, then let her gaze drop all the way down to his shoes, before going back up to his eyes. "How are your urges?"

Roman was impressed that she didn't hesitate. She was comfortable with him and the things that he liked to do. Between Trish's eyes and Heyman's talk yesterday, Roman got the distinct impression that he was not the only serial killer on Shield's payroll.

"They're there," he said with a grunt. "Controllable, for now."

She pursed her lips. "How long do I have before you start finding prey in my building, Roman?"

He shrugged. "About a week?"

She nodded her head. "Alright. And if I give you access to a possible subject, not to kill just yet, but to do some research on, some remote scouting," she said. "How about then?"

Roman grunted. "I usually prefer to follow on the streets, but if your satellites are good enough… a month?"

Roman liked being able to talk about it so easily. It took the pressure off of him to pretend. Trish talked to him like his problems were normal, like there was nothing wrong with him. It was definitely different, and enjoyable.

"A month," Trish said with another nod. "I can do that. We can have you at least ready to go out with a team by then. I'll put you in contact with one of our surveillance people. Get you something to cool your jets."

"After rules and regs," he said with a grin.

Trish returned his grin. "After rules and regs." She stretched her right arm across her body, holding it at the elbow. Roman counted to fifteen before she let go. Trish looked up at him and said, "Alright. I'm not ready for you just yet. Gotta get cleaned up. Why don't you go and find something to eat. There's a commissary equivalent down one level. I'll send someone to your room to get you in about an hour."

Roman nodded and pushed off the wall. That was a dismissal, and he took it as easily as he'd taken it in the military. He turned, and as he made his way out of the gym, his stomach rumbled. The mention of food had reminded him that he was hungry. And the urge to kill that overcame him when he moved past Trish and brushed her arm reminded him that he was horny. Roman groaned and headed to the commissary. Hunger he could do something about. And when he was done, there was a bathroom in his room. He could take another shower, and horny well, it could be kept at bay.

For a while.


	7. New Tech

Seth knew that he wasn't locked in. He had already checked the door and it the knob turned easily. The door made no sound as he pulled it open. But, he had no idea what was out there, who was waiting for him, or where anything was, so he figured he was better off staying inside his room. They would come and get him when they were ready for him, and until then, he could think about the situation he had gotten himself stuck in.

This wasn't his thing. Was this really anybody's thing? Stuff like this happened in TV shows and summer blockbusters. This didn't happen to average guys from Davenport, Iowa. Nothing happened to average guys from Davenport unless they left Iowa and went to Los Angeles or New York, or more likely, since come on, it was Iowa, Chicago.

But, there he was, doing this thing that he didn't even really understand. His hacking had gotten him out of trouble, instead of into it? Oh, it had gotten him into trouble, alright, because this had to be nothing but trouble. This was something that could get him killed. This was something that was probably going to get him killed.

If it did get him killed, though, it would be later, right? Like, they wouldn't kill him until he'd worn out his usefulness, and Seth could easily make himself useful for a long time. But, Mr. Heyman had said something about him going out in the field, and yeah, somebody out there could kill him. Seth could take care of himself, and he hoped that if it came down to a showdown, him versus someone else, he would make the obvious choice, but he knew that there was the chance that he could freeze up, and that would mean dead. But, even that would be a while down the road, right? He still had to train first, or something. That's how these movies and shows went, right?

Seth was going to have to get better at choosing his friends. For years now, he picked people who would eventually turn on him. Austin stole his girlfriend in high school. Jimmy pretended to be his friend, then stole his key, made a duplicate copy, then got him out of his apartment long enough for some guys to come in and steal most of his high-end equipment. And his latest group of friends had set him up for life in prison without parole, if not something worse.

Yeah, Seth was going to have to get a lot better at picking friends. Of course, that was if he ever got the chance to pick friends, again. If he lived that long. If he ever got outside to have friends.

But there were others in this place, right? Maybe he'd hook up with some guys and finally learn what it was like to have real friends, the kind that had your back instead of the kind that put a knife in it and twisted.

A knock at his door made Seth sit up straight. The door started to open, and he pulled himself to his feet. He expected Mr. Heyman or Ms. Stratus, but what he got was a stranger with two-toned hair, blonde on top, black on the bottom. Seth's hand went absently to the blond side of his own hair, then dropped to his side.

"Seth Rollins, right?" He nodded. She came all the way into the room and softly closed the door behind her. "I'm Kaitlyn."

"Hi."

"Apparently, you're my new wonderboy," she said. Kaitlyn put her hands on her hips and looked at him. She wore tight-fitting pants olive green pants tucked into black combo boots, thick socks rolled over the top. She had on a black tank top that was tight enough that Seth admonished himself for the way his eyes were drawn to her chest as it pushed out. A thin white shirt draped over her chest, but Seth still caught a peek.

To avert his eyes, he looked down at his own clothes. He felt bad about checking out Kaitlyn's breasts, but her clothes also made him feel better. His own black cargo-type pants and long-sleeved black t-shirt didn't seem so out of place. So far, the only people he'd met were dressed in business clothes. Seth had one good suit, and he hadn't even brought it with him.

"You okay?"

Seth's head popped up and he nodded. "I'm fine."

"O…kay." Kaitlyn shrugged. "Anyway, I'm head of Surveillance, and I pretty much run the techies, so Trish handed you over to me."

She didn't sound too enthused about that, and Seth winced with guilt. "Sorry?"

She shook her head and tossed a hand out. "No need for you to be sorry. I just…" She shrugged. "My favorite set of operatives have a thing and I don't get to go. It kinda brings me down, but it's not your fault. It's not like you set me up or anything."

The way she said that made Seth wonder how often someone around here was set up. There was disgust in her voice, and a look of disdain on her face. Had she been close to somebody who had been set up? Or did just the idea of a traitor disgust her? Either way, he could understand that. Seth had been set up, and it left him pretty damn disgusted. And he couldn't really fathom setting up anyone, let alone someone that he was supposed to be working with, someone that he had pledged his loyalty to.

"So," Seth said, "you're not just stuck in here?"

Kaitlyn shook her head. "We can't all be stuck in here. There are some things that need to be done in the field. There aren't many of us that go out, not too many that can handle it. But, I take care of myself, and when I can't, I know Miz and Stacy have my back."

Seth took a good look at Kaitlyn, and this time, his eyes didn't focus too long on her breasts. He focused more on the muscles that defined her arms and the ferocity of her stance. She looked like a woman that could take care of herself. There was pride in her voice when she talked about it, too. She didn't seem egotistical. She just seemed like she knew what she was capable of handling, and as long as it stayed within the range of what she could handle, she would go for it with all she had.

"Trish said that you were pretty good. That you can take care of yourself, I mean."

Seth nodded. "I've never…" He paused. He was so tired of telling people that he hadn't killed anyone that he couldn't even say it anymore. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before saying, "What I guess most people around here do, I don't do that, but I can fight. I've had some training." He shrugged. "I wasn't always like this."

Seth moved his hands up and down in front of his body. "I was pretty small as a kid."

"Not so much now, huh?"

"Nope." He snorted. "There are bullies everywhere," he said. "Even in Iowa."

Kaitlyn nodded. "I hear ya," she said. "Bullies can definitely make you have to take care of yourself." Her eyes went away for a second, and Seth thought she was thinking about a set of bullies of her own. She shook her head and said, "Anyway, I hear you're good on the computer, too. My kind of good."

He shrugged. "Good enough, I guess," he told her. "Good enough that these guys want me."

"That's pretty good," she told him. "There are plenty of people out there who think they're the next great hacker, but honestly? Most of them couldn't hack half of the stuff that we do. And don't even get me started on surveillance stuff. The last person in charge of Surveillance had no idea what he was doing. It was a mess before I got in there and cleaned it up."

Seth found himself smiling at her. Kaitlyn was confident, and her confidence put him at ease. They hadn't gotten down to techie jargon, yet, but there was still a level that they talked on that Seth didn't get with most people. When he talked about his electronic prowess with others, they either looked at him with anger, as if he was trying to be better than them, or they asked him if he could hook them up with free cable. Kaitlyn felt like he could talk about some of his greater feats and she would just give him a pat on the back and smile.

"I crack a pretty mean safe, too," he told her. "I've still got a few models that I can't get in, but most of those are the really new ones, and I haven't had the access to them to practice, but I'm pretty good."

"Now, that would come in handy! We've had to send out an operative we really didn't want to send out on a job because she was the only one that could crack a safe. It would be a lot better to just send out the right operative, and a safe cracker with them." Kaitlyn gave him a bright smile. "You might not be so bad, Seth."

He felt himself blushing, and Seth was never more grateful for his Armenian heritage as he was then. Genetics had blessed him with a lot of hair, and while he usually waxed, trimmed, and shaved to keep it in control, he still had a nice batch of it on his cheeks and chin. The beard stopped Kaitlyn from being able to see the full force of his blushing.

"Anyway," Kaitlyn said as she slid her hands into her back pockets, "Trish has plans for your training and other stuff later. Rules and regs, she said you can deal with that later. She's got two other new trainees that came in the same time as you, and she's a little busy so yeah, since you're mainly gonna be a techie, she put you in my very capable hands."

Seth grinned. "Very capable, huh?" A voice in his mind prayed that he didn't sound like he was flirting. He wasn't flirting. She just made him feel at ease, and besides, she was the one that had said something about capable hands, first.

"Extremely," she said with a grin. "So yeah, if you wanna come with me, I can show you where to find the grub, and then we can get going. They usually start newbs out with paperwork, but I like to get right into it, ya know?" She clapped her hands together. "Gotta see what I'm getting my hands on. I like to brag to the other departments that I got the better recruits."

She laughed, and Seth didn't feel any of the anxiety and fear that he'd been filled with up until she came into the room. Kaitlyn worked with assassins, and could probably kick an ass or two, but she seemed fun. She wasn't trapped in a life that she hated. Seth didn't know what she'd done to get recruited by Heyman and Stratus, but no matter it was, Kaitlyn seemed like a good person who found fun in things, even work.

She made Seth think that this wouldn't be so bad, after all.

He smiled at her. "Let's go show you what I can do then." She returned his smile and Seth thought again that, no, this might really not be that bad.


	8. Pathological

The man sitting beside him gave him the fucking creeps. There was no other word for it. He made Dean's skin crawl, and if Dean weren't a tough son of a bitch, he would have gotten up and moved his chair to the other side of the room. But, he was a tough son of a bitch. He was a goddamned crazy motherfucker, if most people who had met him were asked, and he didn't get up just because he was told to sit next to some guy who looked like he ate baby chickens for breakfast.

In fact, just to prove a point, Dean turned in his seat and looked straight at the guy, who was already looking at him. Dean grunted and said, "Wanna know what I look like with my skin inside-out, buddy? The last guy you turned inside out? Yeah, just like that."

The guy sneered and Dean rolled his eyes before turning to stare straight forward. The fuck was he getting into with this place? Yeah, he knew they needed rough and tumble motherfuckers. They had come and gotten his shady ass off of death row, after all, but damn. So far, the only people he'd met outside of the big bosses were a hot crazy bitch and a dude that looked like he had an Ed Gein complex.

Dean snorted. "And, by the way," he said, "I'm prone to rashes." Which he wasn't. "I wouldn't make a good lamp, either." Which he wouldn't.

"Alright, Dean, enough." He didn't turn around to watch Trish walk into the room. Not that he didn't want to, because dear God, to get a look at that bod walking toward him, but because he didn't want to have to split his attention between admiring the boom-ba-da-boom of Trish's hips and the psycho sitting next to him.

He was pretty sure this was the guy AJ had mentioned last night, the other new recruit that was locked in at night, like her. He thought about asking Trish about it, then changed his mind. No one was supposed to know that he had let AJ out of her cell last night, and he hadn't seen her at all that morning.

Trish walked past him, and though he couldn't watch her coming, he was more than happy to watch her walk past. He admired her body, but he'd never actually try anything. She was a little too sane to be his type. She was too rational to have anything at all to do with him outside of work, and Dean didn't really care for rejection. It made him do things that he hadn't planned, and it was a hell of a lot harder to get away with those things without a plan.

"You've got a lot of glass around here," Dean said with a snort. "Got a thing for watchin' people? Or being watched?"

Trish started to sit down at her desk, but at Dean's words, she stopped, her body bent forward, hair falling into her face. Trish shoved her hair back as she stood upright. She stalked around the desk and Dean almost pushed his chair back. That was a dangerous woman, right there. He had to keep reminding himself that his games would only go so far with her. He had no doubt that she would end their little business arrangement quick if Dean pushed her too far, and that ending wouldn't involve him going back to prison.

Trish crossed in front of Dean, to stand between him and the creepy fuck next to him. She hopped up to sit on her desk. Her legs dangled in front of her. She clasped her hands together in a big fist and let it hang between her knees. Dean almost grinned. That posture said, _My dick is bigger than yours. Try me, asshole._ This was definitely a woman who knew how to handle overly aggressive men.

"If you think you're going to get a sexual harassment seminar, Ambrose, you're sorely mistaken," she said. "What you will get, however, is notice that women around here don't complain to HR when a guy's being a dick. The guy just gets a fist, or a foot, to the face. I prefer a foot."

Dean nodded his head slowly. "Duly noted."

"Good." Trish sat up and unclenched her hands. She gripped the edge of her desk as she said, "You both know who I am."

"Actually," Dean said, "you never told me your name."

"But, I'm sure you've found it out by now."

He grinned. "Nice to meet you, Trish."

"Keep being a smartass and it'll be Ms. Stratus," she told him, her eyes stern. She was hard, for sure, but there was something about her that told Dean that there was something going on with her other than typical tough bitch shit. Dean was pretty good at reading people, and he read from her that she had issues.

He watched her knuckles go white as she gripped the edge of her desk. He looked up to her eyes and saw the realization at how hard she was holding on, then looked back down to see her relax her grip. Something was occupying her mind, and she was barely reigning herself in. He was going to have to be careful where he stepped and what he said, at least until that tension left her.

"Dean Ambrose," Trish said, "meet Roman Reigns."

Roman's response was a grunt. Dean gave a grunt of his own, but followed his up with words. He jerked his thumb to the side as he said, "Now, that dude's a fuckin' serial killer."

Dean felt Roman bristle beside him a second before he blurted out, "Jesus Christ, just pass my profile around, already."

Dean chuckled under his breath. "I haven't read your profile," he said, "I just read you."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Dean turned to look him head on. Roman Reigns wasn't the first bad motherfucker that he'd come across, and he wouldn't be the last. Yeah, the guy gave him the creeps, but he was going to have to work with him, or at least that's what he assumed since they were being introduced. He needed to let this guy know that he wasn't a mark.

"I've been called a serial killer before, but I'm not," he told him. "I'm just a mean son of a bitch that likes to hurt people. But you, my man? You've got the pathology. You, Reigns, are a creepy motherfucker. You don't think I know what it feels like to have somebody searching me for the perfect spot to put a knife? Do the time that I've done, and you pick that shit up, quick. You're a fuckin' hunter, and I'm tellin' you right now, I'm not a guy you wanna hunt."

Roman smirked. "You think you could take me?"

"I think I wouldn't have to take you, not one on one, because your pathology won't let you do it until you've got the whole thing planned. Me? Don't need to plan it that much. I don't need to stalk you or learn your patterns. I've just gotta be where you're not expecting me before you finish your rituals and planning. No matter what others might say, I'm not a serial killer, but I've fucking studied 'em enough to know one when I see one, and to know how to get him before he gets me."

Dean saw a challenge in Roman's eyes and wondered if maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. Yeah, he wanted this guy to know that he wasn't a target, but the look in Roman's eyes said that he thought Dean might be the most fun target yet. Dean might have just made himself into the ultimate mark for a serial killer. When he was locked inside an underground facility. Where there were weapons everywhere.

Fuck.

Roman's challenging grin seemed to shift, then. His head nodded up and down twice. His grin turned into an actual smile. Was that… approval? Respect? Dean guessed Roman hadn't had too many guys look him in the eye and talk at him like they could go toe-to-toe with him. Maybe Dean hadn't put himself on the serial radar, after all.

"Are the two of you quite finished, yet?"

Dean and Roman continued to stare at one another. Dean knew that you didn't take your eyes off of a cobra until it was already going in the other direction. It wasn't a staring contest, the first one that looks away is a pussy. Dean didn't give a shit about staring contests. Dean was looking Death in the eyes, and he didn't look away until Death had found someone else a hell of a lot more interesting.

Roman pulled his gaze from Dean and turned toward Trish. Only then did Dean allow himself to do the same. He sat back in his seat and folded his arms. "I guess we are for now," he said.

"Good." Trish pointed at Roman, then at Dean. "The two of you," she said, "are going to be paired up in your training classes until I say otherwise."

"Why?" Roman asked her.

"Because you've got a lot to learn, and he's gonna teach it to you." She hopped down off of her desk and moved around to sit behind it. She turned her back on them easily, even after the display they'd just given. Dean gave her credit for that. She didn't give a shit that she had murderers at her back.

Sitting down, Trish put her hands on bound packets at either side of her. She pushed them simultaneously toward Dean and Roman. "You're going to read these. I'm not about to read them to you. Rules and regulations, boys," she said. "Know them, and love them."

Dean snorted. "Seriously?" He leaned forward and grabbed his packet. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Roman doing the same. "Just, here's your homework and that's it? What kind of teacher are you?"

"The kind that teaches adults who know how to read." Trish leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. "I'm going to highlight the big ones for you, and then I'll leave the rest up to you. We have more important things to teach you that require personal attention."

"And that would be?"

"You both know how to kill a man, but do you know how to get answers out of him before you kill him?"

Roman grunted. "Torture gets you answers, but it doesn't get you the right answers."

Dean jerked a thumb and said, "He's got a point. Most people will say whatever you want them to say to make the pain stop."

Trish laughed, and Dean knew that it would haunt him in his sleep. It was a wicked and mocking laugh, the kind that tore all the way through skin and bone and muscle to bury itself deep at his core. "Oh boys, the pain is just the foreplay. The pain is the fun that you get to have. The pain…" She smirked. "The pain is there so we can get the lies out of the way. Once you have all of the information they're willing to give up, there are ways to make a person believe he or she is in Nirvana and they only get to stay by telling the truth."

"And you're gonna teach us that," Dean said.

"Among other things," she told him. "Of course, there's hand-to-hand combat. Weapons training. Surveillance. There's much more, and you have to pass it all by my standards before you ever get into the field. And I want you both in the field as soon as possible."

Dean snorted. "This one especially, right?"

"Yes, Dean," she said, "Roman especially. " She sat up in her chair and pulled it forward to the desk. "Now, there is one more new recruit that you will probably meet. If things go well, you'll meet him sooner rather than later."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Let me guess," he said, "you're putting together a team."

Trish winked and clicked her tongue at him. "You're a smart one, Dean. I have plenty of people who work well together, but they don't have all the bits that I need to really make a good team."

Roman said, "And you think the three of us would. I don't know anything about the other two, but I'm not that much of a team player."

"You're military, Roman, and the team aspect was not the problem you had in the military. You're a team player. And Dean will be anything I want him to be, won't you, Dean?"

He shrugged. "As long as I get to have some fun, I'll be a cross-dressing porcupine if you ask me nicely."

Trish smirked. "And your third, well, he's a good boy. I'm sure the two of you will correct that in no time." She leaned back in her chair again. "Now, as far as the rules and regulations go, there are just a few that you need to hear coming from my lips."

Dean had a quip about her lips, but he kept it to himself. He wasn't a moron, after all.

"You will hear the term decommission," Trish told them. "I take it the two of you understand inherently what that means." Dean nodded. He looked to the side. Roman was nodding, too. "There are only a few ways to get decommissioned around here. We treat our operatives well. We even have a firm that works with us to help you set up very lucrative retirement funds, as well as beneficiary accounts in case the job stops you from reaching retirement."

Well, that was one hell of a way to say if you got your ass killed.

"We expect retirement at some point," Trish said. "Sometimes, operatives retire to beautiful parts of the world. Sometimes, they retire around here in case they feel the need to come out of retirement. We are not into decommissioning our operatives because they get old or injured. Unless, of course, you break your contract."

"And I take it the contract has a confidentiality clause."

"Yes, it does, Dean," she said, "and that clause clearly states what will happen should you break it." She stared at him and he just shrugged. Dean knew how to keep his mouth shut. "The number one way to get yourself decommissioned is to decide that someone else's deal is better than ours. And if you want to know why the veteran operatives give me a very wide berth when I come through and look like I'm on a war path? Well," she said with a smirk, "you can guess who has taken care of quite a few of those decommissions."

Dean cast his eyes to the side. Roman Reigns may have been a serial killer, but the man wasn't a complete sociopath. He knew what fear felt like, and he knew when to be afraid. His face didn't change, didn't overtly show his fear, but it was in the way his eyes widened for a second. Dean knew that fear because he felt it himself. He just knew better than to show it. If Reigns was going to be working with him, he was going to have to lean it, too, and quick.

"We do not take kindly to traitors around here, gentlemen. Let that stand as your first and final warning." Trish pushed back from the desk and stood up. "Now, if you'll follow me, we will head over to HR and get your paperwork started. You will be issued new social security numbers and you have some federal tax forms to fill out."

Dean barked a laugh. "Are you shitting me? We have to pay taxes?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you the only certainties in life are death and taxes?" Trish winked at him. "Now, when your paperwork is done, you'll have the rest of the afternoon to familiarize yourself with the building and to begin reading your rules and regulations. I'll meet you both after lunch for your first class."

Dean asked, "Weapons training?"

Roman asked, "Hand-to-hand?"

Trish grinned at them. "First Aid and CPR, boys." She winked again. "Priorities, gentlemen. My, I do have a couple of mad dog killers on my hands, don't I?"

Trish walked around the desk and again put her back to them as she walked to the office door. She didn't look behind her as she stepped through the door and began her descent down the stairs. She knew they would follow, and they would follow soon. Dean sure as hell wasn't about to keep her waiting for too long.

But, before he left, he leaned to the side and said, "And they call me crazy?"

Roman grunted and pushed to his feet. He looked down at Dean and said, "You looked me in the eye and offered a challenge. You are crazy." He snorted, then smirked. "But, that woman? She's worse than crazy."

"Oh yeah?" Dean stood up. "And what's worse than crazy?"

Roman said, "She's vicious," then stepped to the side and walked to the door. And all Dean could do was follow and shake his head, because dude had a pathology that should have put him in the chair, but he was definitely not wrong.


	9. Group Formation - Hand to Hand Combat

**Two weeks later…**

Reigns looked like he could crush him. Ambrose looked like he would crush his mind before he crushed the rest of him. And Seth was supposed to go up against them? He shook his head and wished he was back in the tech lab with Kaitlyn, or learning surveillance equipment. He already knew how to take care of himself. But, Trish thought that he didn't know enough, not to truly be efficient in the field, and that meant hand to hand combat training.

The other two men in his training class looked like they were already pros at hand to hand, especially Reigns. Seth didn't know much about him, other than that he was a killer. Same with Ambrose. He didn't need anyone to tell him that, either. He just had to look at them to tell. They stalked the room like animals eyeing their prey. They were like lions in the Serengeti, and Seth found it odd that they hadn't killed each other yet. In fact, as they stood on the opposite side of the room, talking in whispers, they looked like they were friends.

Seth had seen them in the halls together, muttering to each other under their breaths. Kaitlyn had told him that very few people in any Shield base had known one another before they were recruited. Reigns and Ambrose must have had a lot in common to become that close of friends in so little time.

And he was supposed to be part of that group.

Seth shuddered. He had no idea how to get in with the two of them. He wasn't a cold-blooded killer. He could fight, but the damage he would do was nothing compared to them if they got their hands on someone. He had a pretty decent personality, so that was on his side.

"Alright, fellas, it's time to see what you've got."

Seth turned his eyes on their instructor. The large, extremely pale man went by Sheamus, and his red hair and accent went with the Irish name. He was big, muscular, another one that could probably crush him. Seth had quickness on his side, though. His sensei had told him that he was incredibly fast for a guy of his height. Seth had built up a lean body of muscle. The bulkier his clothes, the less others could tell his strength and power. For training, Seth wore sweat pants that hung on his hips and a black t-shirt. He figured it was better to show what he had up front, especially if he was going to be in class with Reigns and Ambrose.

"You, fella, the little one. Over here."

Seth groaned. He hated being called little. He was over six feet tall and had enough bulk on him to handle himself. But, compared to the others in the room, yeah, he was little.

He walked up to Sheamus and went into a quick crouch, his legs spread apart, right foot forward, hands clenched in fists in front of him. He heard Ambrose and Reigns snickering behind him. Sheamus looked down at him and grinned. "You're scrapper, eh?"

"You could call it that." Seth flexed his hands, stretching them out wide before tightening them into a ball again. "We gonna do this or what?"

Sheamus laughed. "Alright, fella, we'll do this." Sheamus stepped back and rocked his head back and forth. He rotated his shoulders. He shifted his weight from side to side before finally taking a stance with his feet apart, fists in front of him.

Seth recalled what he had learned in class. Watch the shoulders, he had been told. The shoulders were telegraph coming punches. But, he couldn't stay focused on the shoulders. He had to watch the feet and the hands. The only thing he didn't watch was the face. A really good fighter had an amazing poker face.

Sheamus threw a right-hand punch and Seth moved to the side. A left and he moved to the other side. For a big guy, Sheamus was quick, and Seth was barely able to dodge his next barrage of fists. Seth stumbled backward and was just glad that he had managed to keep his feet.

Sheamus barely gave him time to breathe. He rushed him, coming at him with physically imposing power. Seth knew he couldn't take him straight forward. He had to use his skills, and he was pretty damn good at dodging an opponent. Seth didn't run away, but he didn't run for him, either. He dodged left and right. He did a backflip to put him out of the reach of the large foot that was heading toward his face. Sheamus's boot came down hard on the floor and he glared at Seth.

"Alright, kid," he said, "you're quick, but at some point, you have t' make a hit."

Seth brushed his hand over the head. "Isn't that what they're for?" He jerked his thumb behind him to the still snickering psycho pair.

"Not if you're by yourself in a surveillance van and they're out there doing a job."

"We've got weapons training coming up, right? I pull out a gun and shoot 'em." Seth was proud of himself for sounding so nonchalant about it. He wasn't looking forward to weapons training. Not a killer, remember? And he didn't think they would be teaching him how to take people out at the knees. They were going to teach him kill shots, and he wasn't too sure he was ready for that.

Sheamus rushed him and Seth missed the motion. He underestimated his trainer, assuming that they were out of combat mode. Sheamus had him by the arms in a second. He crossed Seth's arms, right over left, bent his wrist back to an angle that made Seth shout and drove an elbow into his stomach.

Seth stumbled backward, his body hunched over to guard his aching stomach and wrist, as Sheamus told him, "I've just disarmed ya. What are ya plannin' to do, now?"

Seth watched Sheamus's body for signs of movement, signs of intent, and saw nothing. He was giving him time to recoup, which was more than he was going to get from anybody out in the field. He had to come up with something, and come up with it fast. It didn't have to be right, it didn't have to be perfect. It just had to be something, anything at all, to show that he could think out there. If he wasn't useful for what they wanted him for, they would toss him out and send him straight to a federal penitentiary for being a dumbass washout, and that was if they didn't just put a bullet in him.

Seth had his speed and his quickness, and the ease with which people underestimated his fighting skills. He could use that.

"Time's up, fella. Let's go."

Sheamus rushed him, and Seth ran forward. The boldness of the move caught Sheamus off-guard and there was a slight hitch in his step. Seth took a sharp right turn and ran straight for the wall. His feet left the floor and he took two huge steps up the wall before pushing off with all of the power he had in his legs. Seth turned his body mid-air, and before Sheamus could react, his knee crashed into the side of his head. Sheamus went to the floor and Seth landed on his feet.

Seth stood ready for another attack, his eyes on Sheamus. His chest heaved. The loose ponytail he'd started the sparring with was almost gone. He reached back and yanked the elastic band off the end of his hair and let it flow. He tossed the elastic band to the floor.

From behind him, Seth heard a slow clap. He turned around and saw Ambrose clapping. Reigns smirked. It was a mistake to turn his back on Sheamus, and he would remember to pay more attention last time. The knee to the head had given him a small advantage, and he should have capitalized on it.

Sheamus came at him from behind. Seth felt it coming too late to fully dodge the attack. All he could do was lessen the two-fisted blow that came down on his back. Instead of the full force, he escaped with just a glancing blow, but it was enough to send him down to his knees. Sheamus didn't make Seth's mistake. He grabbed him, one arm going across his chest, the other coming up under his arm. He pulled Seth up in a hold that he couldn't get out of. Seth tried to fold his body in half, tried to toss his legs up, but Sheamus had it cinched on. He wasn't letting him go.

"Lesson one, fella," Sheamus told him. "Never take your eyes off a guy 'til ya know he's not getting back up, got me?"

Seth choked out a response. "Yeah," he said. His hands gripped Sheamus's arms, still trying to pry him loose.

"Lesson two. Always know where your team is."

Sheamus and Seth both jerked their heads up in surprise at the nearness of Ambrose's voice. He threw a punch that Sheamus was able to dodge, pulling both of their bodies to the side. But, there was still Reigns, and it turned out that he was standing behind Sheamus. Seth felt a hard push forward as Reigns put a hard fist into Sheamus's back.

"That was a knife," he said. Seth was glad that he couldn't see his face. Reigns's voice was calm, low, and deadly. Seth didn't think he'd want to be anywhere near that group if he actually could see the look in his future teammate's eyes right then.

Sheamus released Seth and he ran forward enough to be out of his grasp, then jumped up and turned around. He stayed on his feet, even though he wanted to drop to his knees and take a breath. Now that he had Sheamus in his sights, he didn't want to let him out of it again.

Sheamus reached back, trying to reach the spot he'd taken the hard blow from Reigns. Seth expected him to attack, but instead, the big Irishman laughed. "Not bad," he said through his chuckles. "All that military time taught you teamwork."

"Among other things," Reigns told him with a grunt.

"Here's lesson four. Don't stand there and watch your teammate getting his arse beat so bad before you step in." Sheamus dropped his arms and rotated his shoulders.

Ambrose shrugged. "He was handling his own. I like to see what a guy's got before I step in. Chicks, too," he said, "with the ones you've got around here."

"Smart man," Sheamus told him with a nod. He shook his arms and rocked his head from left to right. "Alright, fellas, enough chit chat. I saw what I needed to see, now get to work."

Seth narrowed his eyes. " Now, wait a minute. You didn't see anything out of those two."

"Those two are using hand to hand as a last resort," Sheamus told him, "and they're bigger than you."

"Not faster," Seth told him.

"No, not faster, and you're gonna use that as much as you can. It'll come in handy. Let me tell ya, kid, you go up against some of our adversaries, you'll need that quickness. But that's not what I learned about you. I learned that you're slow to attack, and that'll get ya killed. If that's what we wanted, Trish would have left you where she found ya. Can't be scared to hit, fella. It'll get ya dead."

Seth groaned. "Stop calling me fella. It's worse than kid."

Sheamus laughed. "I call everybody fella, fella, get used to it." His eyelid snapped closed in a quick wink that was too mocking for Seth to like it. "Now, get to the mats, boys. We've got work to do before I set the three of ya out on the world."

Sheamus turned away from them, and Seth looked at his two fellow recruits. Ambrose looked at him like he was amused. Reigns looked at him like he didn't care. Seth sighed. This was supposed to be a team? Sure, they had come to his rescue, but Sheamus had a point. They sure as hell had waited long enough before they did it.

Ambrose stepped up to him and put a hand out. "Dean," he said. Seth hesitated, unsure if it was a trick and he would find himself planted on his ass. "Well?"

Seth sighed and took the offered hand. "Seth," he said.

"Roman." There was no extended hand from the deeper voice and that was fine by Seth. He wasn't too sure he trusted that guy, yet. Hell, he didn't really trust Dean, either, but at least Dean didn't look like he was trying to figure out how wide of a hole he needed to dig when he looked at him.

"Tech?" Dean asked.

Seth looked back at him and nodded. He jerked his head back toward Roman, then nodded forward toward Dean. "Death?"

Dean smirked. "Can't you see my scythe?"

"You don't plan to bury it in my back, do you?"

Dean laughed. He ruffled Seth's hair and Seth groaned. That only made Dean laugh more. "Don't worry, kid," Dean told him, "we got the speech. Only back I'm burying anything in the one they tell me to."

"And him?" Seth asked, his eyes flicking to Roman.

"Roman's on his best behavior, aren't you, Roman?"

Roman smirked and the humor in his eyes was frightening. "For about two more weeks," he said with a snort. "We'll see about any longer than that."

Dean laughed and while Roman didn't join in with a full belly laugh, he chuckled, and his eyes lit up with something even more terrifying than a moment before. Dear God, these two were going to be his partners? Seth was either going to die or go insane, and right then, he wasn't sure which one was the better option.


	10. Frustration, Sexual and Otherwise

Roman looked down at his notes. They weren't nearly as complete as he would have liked them to be. There were still steps that he didn't know, time for which he couldn't account. There were only so many cameras, and it was inevitable that the guy would vanish at some point. What did he do when he was out of Roman's sight? This wasn't like losing a mark in the bathroom for five minutes. This was an hour or more of not knowing.

There were cameras in the mark's car, cameras at his job, and at least three satellites that they could tap into in order to get a view of him, but he took the subway home, and once he went down into the tunnels, a little time was needed to get access to the cameras down there. And when he came up, the satellites had to be repositioned.

No, Roman did not like doing this from the safety of a computer in an underground bunker. He needed to be out on the streets, his feet on the pavement. He needed to feel the buzz of life passing him by, the thrill of people brushing against him, not knowing that they had just brushed arms with Death. He needed to feel the air around him, the cold burning his skin in the winter, the heat pulling sweat from his skin and soaking him in the summer.

He just needed to get outside.

Roman stood up from the desk. His chair scraped the floor loudly as it was pushed back. Roman felt the eyes turning his way, but ignored them the same as he had been ignoring them every second of every time that he sat in the surveillance room. Sometimes he wondered which ones were afraid of him because they had common sense, and which ones were terrified because they had gotten into his profile. Most of the time, though, he just didn't care.

The face of his mark stared up at him from the computer screen. Would they send Roman out after him? Or was he just doing the busy work for someone else to get the prize? Roman looked at the dull, dark eyes that stared at him from the screen. If he got his hands on him, he would shave the man first. His beard was in the way, and when Roman went for the throat, he preferred a smooth, clean cut.

Roman shook his head and turned away from the computer. He caught eyes with the Surveillance lead and was impressed that Kaitlyn managed to meet his eyes for a full twelve seconds before she had to turn away. She was getting better. The last time she and Roman locked eyes, she'd only lasted eight seconds. The first time, she hadn't even made it to three.

Roman walked past her and everyone else. His feet fell silently against the floor. It was a gift that he seemed to always have. For a guy his size, he should have been a lumbering hulk who announced his entrance in the loudest way possible, but his footsteps had always been so light. Roman's spec ops leader had told him that God had gifted him to do their special work. Roman only grunted. It was more like the devil had cursed him with the necessary skills to do his work.

He walked into the hall and turned right. Roman kept his eyes forward as he moved, his arms swinging at his sides. The halls were mostly empty, just a few people moving around. At this time of the afternoon, necessary personnel were at their stations. Trainees were in their classes. Roman's future team were in weapons training. Roman had been excused, because no one wanted to waste their time. With everyone having a job to do or a place to be, there weren't many people to watch him, to wonder where he was going, to push against the wall to avoid crossing his path.

Roman moved down straight corridors and rounded sharp corners. He moved through office space, dormitory space and nothing space. He took an elevator down to the lowest level of the base, then walked through more nothing space that led to office space. Roman moved until he was at the bottom of a long steel stairway, looking up into a cold glass box.

Trish looked down at him. Had she already been there, looking out on her shared empire? Or had someone realized where he was going and given her a heads up? Their eyes met, and Roman knew her to be one of the few people in the world that he couldn't automatically read. She would have been a wonderful hunt.

Roman shook his head. No women. No children. He reminded himself of his rules. He turned away from the box for a moment and focused on the first man that caught his eyes. He looked like prey, but not Roman's kind of prey. He did nothing to stop the thoughts in his head.

Roman took in a deep breath and turned his head slowly, almost painfully, back to look up at Trish. He felt a warmth in his stomach and a throbbing low in his groan. His chest heaved with his breaths and his shoulders rose and fell with each aching intake of air. The smart thing to do would have been to walk away. The easy thing to do would have been to go back to his room and let someone lock him in for the rest of the day.

Roman was neither smart nor easy at the moment.

The feelings in him- Something had to be done about them. If he were back out in the real world, he could have at least gotten a prostitute. He didn't have a regular girl, because regular would have turned to stalking, and before long, he would have broken his rule. But, there were enough working girls on the streets in his city, in any other city that he needed to visit, that Roman could always find a girl that he hadn't fucked recently. Another rule to live by… Never go back to the same girl unless there were at least three others between the visits.

But, they weren't going to let him out, not even with a chaperone, because they knew he could evade even their best watcher. And he wasn't even going to ask Heyman to get him a hooker. That wasn't the kind of thing a guy asked his boss to do. Besides, to ask meant he would have to explain why getting one was so dire, and telling Number One that he was so horny he wanted to strangle Number Two, well… Roman did not want to be decommissioned, especially before he ever got the chance to go out and do the damn job.

Trish gave a jerking nod of her head and turned away from the glass. Roman puckered his lips. As they moved back to relax, his tongue snaked out, ran across his lips in a moist wipe, then let it slither back into his mouth. He rotated his shoulders, then moved forward. His arms swayed at his sides, then jumped with the motion of his body as he reached the bottom of the stairs and jogged up.

The door was already open when Roman reached the top of the stairs. He closed it behind him when he walked through.

Trish stood to the left of her desk, her fingers hanging down, nails tapping against the black lacquer finish. Her black skirt hugged her hips and thighs, ending just above her knees. Her white shirt was tight against her chest, her breasts pressing against the material. Thin straps over her shoulders left her arms bare, the muscles beneath the skin loose and at ease. Roman's eyes flicked to the side and, as expected, her jacket hung neatly on the back of her chair. That shirt was too damn tight for a professional woman like that to wear it without a jacket. If she wore black hose with her heels, she damn sure wore a jacket.

"You're getting restless," Trish said. She walked forward, her nails sliding instead of tapping as she moved past the end of the desk. Trish folded her arms over her stomach and rested her weight on her right hip.

"Something like that," Roman said, his voice low and guttural.

"How is your research going on our latest project?"

Roman groaned. "It's going as far as it can go without actually following him."

"I see." Trish switched her weight to the other hip. "And what can you tell me about our possible target?"

Roman stepped forward. He balled his left fist and buried it in the palm of his right. He cracked the knuckles of his left hand, then repeated it with the right. "He's a creature of habit. On the plus side, that means that we know where he's going to be at any given moment of the day. On the negative, it means that he doesn't leave too many openings to slide in. We're not the only ones that know he likes his habits and routines. Everybody who knows him knows it."

"And where would you take him, then?"

"Subway." There was no need for hesitation. Roman had already planned out the kill. This wasn't one that he would be able to take his time with. There was just no way for him to get the mark out of the subway with no one seeing him. Plus, Roman was itching for the kill too badly. He wanted the death. The play could wait until he wasn't so keyed up.

Besides, this was a company job. Roman had to get used to doing them quick.

"Quick and easy," Roman said. He dropped his arms to his sides and stood up straight. "A long thin blade under his arm, he'd probably ride the train for hours before anyone figured out that he was dead."

"It's amazing that more people don't recognize you, Roman." Trish walked toward him, her movements slow and deliberate. Roman forced his eyes to stay on her face, but they sorely wanted to go down and watch her hips move. "You are a rather imposing figure."

Roman grinned. "A big guy dressed in all black hiding his face with a hoodie everybody notices. A nicely dressed man in a suit and tie with a briefcase isn't noticed that much. Only people who remember him would be the ladies he flashed a smile at, and they're not going to remember how close he was sitting to a guy they didn't even realize was dead."

Trish smirked. "And you have such a winning smile."

Roman let his lips slide into a well-practiced smile. He knew that his real smile could make men piss themselves at the drop of a hat. However, he had also learned that the right kind of smile could make a woman forget anything other than the things she wanted to do to the man who flashed her that smile. Roman hated most people, didn't like socializing with them, but he had learned long ago how to pretend, and when he wanted to, he was very good at it. It just so happened that he didn't want to do it very often.

Trish bit her bottom lip. Her right hand moved to rest on her stomach. The heat in her eyes told Roman that, even though it had been over a year since he last had to use that smile, he still knew how to put it on. It also made his groin tighten and his heart rate speed up.

Roman dropped the smile and his face went blank again.

Trish took three steps toward him, then stopped. Her hands dropped to her sides. Roman knew how to read people, and from Trish, he read the possibility that she wasn't too far in her thinking than he was. She may not have the urge to kill when she was attracted to someone, but attraction did still exist.

"You're not the kind of man to beat around the bush, are you, Roman?" Trish asked him.

"Never found any use in it," he told her.

"So, if I were to make you an offer, and you were interested in it…"

Roman snorted. His lip curled up and his eye lit with his smirk as he said, "You're beating around the bush, Trish."

"I prefer not to be called on things, for future reference."

Roman nodded. "Understand."

"Well, then, when I'm prepared to make that offer to you, I assume that you will be accepting it."

Roman nodded again. "You assume correctly."

"Perfect." Trish turned her back on him, and Roman was pretty sure that was the sexiest thing about her. She had fear, she knew fear, but when it came to Roman, she didn't show any of it. She was strong enough, confident enough, to turn her back on a man who could kill her and be out of the room in less than ten seconds.

Trish walked slowly around her desk. She caught Roman's eyes as she placed her hands flat on the desk and lowered herself into her seat. "A few more weeks, Roman, and I'll be ready to send you out," she told him. "Until then, I need you to stay calm."

Roman took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. A few more weeks, she said. Roman was hoping that she would be impressed enough, or afraid enough if that made a difference, to let him out sooner. "When does my door stop getting locked at night?" Roman asked her.

Trish smirked at him and his groin tightened again. "Right after your first job," she told him. "Then, I think we'll all be safer. Don't you?"

Roman grunted. He wasn't going to kill anyone, not yet, but there was no point arguing with them. "If you say so." Roman turned away from her quickly, and the movement made him groan. His groin was tight, and he needed to get some relief, and fast. Before he did something he would regret.

"Somewhere to be, Roman?" Trish called after him.

He grunted, his hand on the door. He turned the knob and pulled the door open quickly. Roman didn't look at her as he said, "Yeah. Unless you're making that offer right now."

He could hear the smirk in her voice as she said, "Not just yet, Roman."

He grunted, then walked through the door. He left the door open, the same way as he found it. Roman jogged back down the stairs and again ignored all of the looks that came in his direction as he walked quickly through the room and, when he reached the hallway, that quick pace turned into a jog, that was almost a full run by the time he reached the elevator.

Because Roman needed to take care of himself before someone died.


	11. Freedom

The click of the door lifted Dean from the bed. He planted his elbows in the mattress and pushed himself up. It figured that somebody would come in and disrupt him the night he decided to give the bed a try. Thing turned out to be pretty damn comfortable. Dean realized just how much he missed sleeping in a bed that night.

Dean squinted in the dark. He saw a small bouncing shadow, and the sight pushed him upright. "The hell?" The door closed and he was alone in the mostly dark with a psychopath. "What are you doing out?"

AJ bounced over to the foot of the bed. Dean watched her move, going up and down in the light from the hallway that glowed through the door's small window. He sat up further, and pushed back against the wall. Fuck, he should have stayed on the floor. She couldn't have seen him if he was on the floor. She would have just figured that he was out walking the halls.

He liked the chick. She was hot, and she understood the crazier parts of him. But… that bitch was crazy, and seeing her standing at the foot of the bed, Dean kind of wanted to kill her before she could kill him. He didn't have a weapon on him, but he was a lot bigger than her. He had size to his advantage, and unlike Bryan, he also knew the bitch was crazy and coming to kill. There would be no pictures of Dean with a knife to his throat and a psycho standing over him.

"They let me out." AJ put her arms behind her back and twisted from side to side. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, Dean could see the bright smile that stretched across her face. "Apparently, I'm not on punishment anymore."

"Uh huh."

"For real! I mean, come on, Dean, it's not like anybody would help me escape. Well, anybody but you." She giggled, and what the fuck, man, it was cute. How did someone so crazy manage to be fucking cute? Dean had dated a girl once who had a habit of calling everything adorable. She would have called AJ adorable. Yeah, right up until adorable put an ice pick in her ear.

Dean ran a hand down his face and groaned. "So, they let you out, and you decide to come here."

"I came to get you!" AJ bounced on the balls of her feet. She was too excited, had too much energy for this time of night. Even crazy people needed to get some sleep. Even psychos needed to get a rest once in a while. AJ was usually up and terrifying half the building well before Dean got up in the morning, and she was always ready to go at night when he got to her locked room. When the hell did that bitch sleep?

"Kinda tired, AJ," Dean said with a grunt. "It's been a long day. I got a lot o' long days ahead of me."

"Oh, dumb!" He couldn't see clearly enough to be sure, but by the way her bright white smile vanished, Dean guessed that she was pouting. "You already know half the stuff they're teaching you."

"I wouldn't say half." Dean snorted. "Probably about a third. Some of it's actually kinda useful."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Dean grunted. "I don't really like talkin' about shit I don't know. I'd rather talk about shit I do know. Makes me feel smarter."

"Oh? And what do you know, Dean Ambrose?"

"I know that AJ Lee is a fucking nutjob and she's probably got a knife in her panties or some shit."

AJ laughed loud and hard. Dean got a flash of her white teeth as her mouth opened wide. She threw her head forward and her hair went over her head and touched the bed. Dean could feel it brushing the top of his feet through the thin blanket that covered him. AJ threw her head back and started to bring the laughter under control.

"Whew! You're a riot, Dean!" AJ put her hand to her chest as she took big heaving breaths. "Truth, though, is that they don't really let us have our own weapons. They're all locked up until we need them for a job. Personally I think it's kind of stupid."

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. With people like us around, it sounds pretty smart to me."

"Yeah, but what happens if like, ninjas attack us in the middle of the night."

"Ninjas?" Dean quirked a disbelieving eyebrow. "Really? Ninjas?"

"Or terrorists!"

"Uh huh."

"Or the ever present enemy." AJ put mock terror in her voice. "Oh my God, Dean, who will protect us if the ever present enemy comes in to kill us!"

Dean chuckled. Maybe that was why he liked AJ. Not just because she understood the crazy, but because she could make him laugh. He couldn't remember the last time that he had legitimately laughed at anything anyone else had said. He didn't mean laughing at them, because he laughed at stupid shit people did all the time. But to legitimately laugh with someone, to laugh because they were genuinely funny, because they tickled that part of him that knew humor and fun, well, that hadn't happened in a very long time.

It felt good to laugh. It felt good to have fun. Fun made Dean forget the shit of everything. It made him forget that he was angry all the goddamned time. It was a time when he could just fucking be, ya know? Like, he didn't have to pretend that he wasn't fucked up. He didn't have to watch what he was doing or what he was saying, or how he looked at someone, because laughing, well, that was shit everybody did all the time, and that shit was fucking normal, man. Fuck yeah, when he laughed like that, he just felt normal.

Even though he knew he wasn't.

But, it wasn't so bad, and it didn't last long. That was the best part of it. Normal was boring after a while, pretending at it and actually living it. Laughter would bore him if it didn't go away eventually. Dean could laugh and have some fun, he could have a good time, and then he could let it go long before he ever reached the point where he was bored with it all.

Dean smirked at her when his laughter died down. He put on his best swagger face. It would have been perfect if he had some gum right then. "I'll protect ya, baby."

AJ giggled. "You'll be my savior?"

"The one and only." He winked at her. The way she giggled said that her eyes were as adjusted to the darkness as his were. "But, you gotta come over here for me to do it."

"I do, huh?" She twisted side to side.

"Special bedding. Under these covers, the bad guys can't see you."

"But, we are the bad guys," AJ told him.

"Nah, we're just the not-so-bad guys. Definitely not the good guys, though. You can't really be the people we are and be the bad guys."

AJ stopped twisted and cocked her head to the side. "Interesting," she said.

"What?"

She shrugged. "I expected you to counter with saying the things we do couldn't make us good guys."

Dean returned her shrug. "Sweetheart, I'm not naïve. I know the shit the so-called good guys have to do to beat the really bad guys. We're not different from the military or the spies, or anybody else. We do the job that has to be done. But, let's look at the people doing the job. We're criminals, sweetheart, and some of us, a lot of us, are cold-blooded murderers. I'm not one of the good guys, AJ, and neither are you. We just do the good guys' dirty work."

"I think we're the good guys," AJ said with a shrug. "I think that we're crazy, and we have all kinds of fucked up issues, and some of us have done horrible things. But I think we're making up for it now. I mean, come on, Dean! We're saving the country!"

"Oh, AJ, sweetheart, you really are insane, aren't you?" Dean barked out a harsh laugh. "We're saving our bank accounts and the Western way of life, that's about it."

"Fine," she said, "we're saving capitalism, but we're saving something. And we're using our powers for sorta good instead of totally bad, so ya know what? I think we're the good guys."

Dean didn't know what to think about AJ Lee. Oh, sure, he knew she was battier than the Joker, but other than that- The girl was smart, that was for damn sure. And she had to have heart, 'cause she was guilty as hell about something. Only somebody who felt guilty needed to rationalize the shit that they had done. Dean didn't believe that AJ felt guilt for the vast majority of her crimes, but one of them- She had killed someone and she felt bad about it. Dean might ask her about it one day. He kind of wondered how guilt felt.

"Whatever, AJ." Dean grunted and slid down in the bed. "Answers still the same, though. If you want me to protect you from the really bad guys come to get us, you gotta come get it in this bed. It's the only place that's gonna happen."

"Well…" She twisted side to side again, and AJ was more comfortable with her being crazy and weird. "I mean, they could come in here and get us any minute, so I guess I should probably climb in, huh?"

"If you want protection."

Dean closed his eyes. He listened to AJ's giggles and the padding thumps of her sneakers against the floor. He felt the bed sink as she bounced on, and then two more thumps as she kicked off her shoes and they fell to the floor.

He had thought that this would go differently. He had expected her to be locked in a little longer. Dean figured he could have the Seth come up with a rig for the door, figured the kid was good enough to do that. Then, Dean could sneak in and still get back out in the morning. He thought that he would be the one to go to her, but this… This was just as good. This was better, because it meant he had to do a lot less work.

The pressure on the bed disappeared for a moment, and there was rustling, and then the pressure was there again. When she slid beneath the covers and eased over his body, Dean knew that she had been removing whatever she'd worn on the bottom half of her body. And when she climbed on top of his, she learned that he slept in absolutely nothing.

AJ giggled. "Looks like you were expecting me, Dean."

"Don't flatter yourself," he said. "And don't flatter me, either. I don't even pretend to know what the hell you're thinking."

"So, you sleep like this all the time?"

"Every night."

"Good to know." AJ positioned herself on his stomach. As she sat up, her panties rubbed against his skin. A growl crawled up Dean's throat as a throbbing heat built in his belly and surged lower. Goddamn, it had been too long since he'd had a woman.

AJ sat all the way up. She gripped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head. She flung it to the floor and looked down at Dean. She put the tip of her index finger in her mouth and giggled. She sure as hell was a giggler. It was kinda creepy, but hot at the same time.

AJ dropped her hands to his chest. She scratched him and Dean's hands went to her sides. She leaned over him and pressed her lips to his. AJ slid her body down, and when she reached his groin, he couldn't hold back. Dean dug his hands in and flipped her over onto her back. Their lips parted long enough for AJ to bark a laugh, then Dean kissed her again. She pressed the lower half of her body up, rubbed herself against him, and it was on.

Oh, fuck yeah, it was definitely on.


	12. First Mission

**Three weeks later…**

"So yeah, guys, I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs. Guy hasn't moved, and if the intel is right, he won't be going anywhere for the rest of the night."

Roman's deep voice, gravelly over the airwaves, came through Seth's ear piece. "The intel is as right it's going to get since they didn't let me actually follow him."

Seth groaned. He wasn't talking about Roman, specifically. He was pretty sure that Roman's part in all of it was on point. Truth was, Seth was kind of worried about his own intelligence. Kaitlyn had put him on the final details of the job. He was surveillance and tech, so it was up to him to make sure that his team had everything they needed. It was his job to second guess everything everyone else had come up with, because he was the one that would be out there in the field. He was the one that had their lives in his hands.

Way to put the pressure on, ya know?

Seth had gone over everything with a fine-toothed comb, and then done it again, just to be sure. There would never be a second mission if he let his team get taken out on their first mission.

He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. Seth was still uncomfortable about this whole thing. They had given him the background on this guy, what he was up to, what he was doing, why they were being paid to stop him. But, Seth wasn't an idiot, and he knew that they were spinning it in a perfect way for him, or at least trying to spin it. Maybe this guy wasn't completely evil, but Heyman wanted him to think so.

Dean had tried to explain it to him, but it was hard to take the kind of advice Seth needed to get from a murderer. Seth needed to know how to continue thinking of himself as a decent human being. All Dean gave him were reasons it was okay to slit someone's throat. And all Roman had added to the conversation was the best way to slit someone's throat. Needless to say, neither of them had been very helpful.

In the end, a desire to live was Seth's great motivator. Plain and simple, he knew he was screwed if he couldn't do this job. If all of that evidence showed up again, his new identity was going to disappear and he'd find himself right back in Iowa, facing a jury who had too much information against him to give back anything but a capital murder guilty verdict.

So, Seth had to man up. He had to push through and let himself believe the line that the company fed to him. Yes, they were doing this for money, but they were really just making profit off of something that should have been done anyway. Why should they risk themselves without hazard pay?

Seth sighed and looked over to the screens. He had one for Dean and one from Roman, as they snuck around the grounds of the large gated mansion. Seth had already shut down the security system and the electrified fence. The system had been easy to hack. That was the problem when you went to legitimate security professionals who didn't have their firewalls routed and rerouted ten times over by hackers who knew all the tricks in the game. Professionals thought they knew hackers. Hackers knew that they know everybody and everything.

"I fucking hate dogs," Dean grumbling voice came through the headset.

Seth sat up and peered at Dean's screen. "That's why you have the taser," Seth told him. "Use it."

"It would be a lot easier to—"

"Use it," Seth said, his voice stern. Dean had become the defacto leader of the group. They were all the around the same age, but Dean had experience on his side, and even if he didn't, he had charisma. He was a born leader, and Seth and Roman let him do it. But, there were things that Seth would stand up for, things that were out of the realm of what he could accept, and this was one of those things. Everybody was so careful to follow Roman's rules. They could follow Seth's lone rule about animals.

Dean grunted, but as Seth watched, he complied. The electrodes shot out of the taser before the mastiff could do more than bare his large teeth. The dog went down with so little noise that Seth didn't even hear a whimper on his end of the line. The dog was down, but after they left, he would get up and shake it off. Seth had made sure to personally program the tasers himself, and Kaitlyn had helped him make sure the settings couldn't be changed.

"Happy now?" Dean took the electrodes from the dog's shoulder and retracted them into his taser.

"Thank you, Dean." He grunted, and Seth laughed. Seth had been worried about the way they would work together, the way they would just be together in general, really, but it hadn't take him long to find out that he kind of liked these guys. Dean was crazy, and Roman was serial, but the three of them together fit.

Dean's voice came through the headset again. "Roman? Status."

"Two dogs down in the back," he said, then added, "alive and asleep." The tightening in Seth's chest loosened. "I'm heading in now. Cut the chatter, let's get this done."

"You heard the man," Dean said. "Less play, more work. Let's do this."

Seth reached to the side and picked up a tall can of Red Bull. He popped the tab and drank a quarter of the can before setting it back down. The rest of the team was in for fun, their kind of fun, and Seth was going to watch until he couldn't do it anymore. He'd focus on Dean when Roman went in for the kill. But, before they got there, they had to get through the house. Dean still had to get across the grounds. Seth focused his eyes on both screens, to make sure that both of those things happened.

Inside the house, one foot in the back door, Roman groaned. He didn't know why they had turned this mission into a team thing. He didn't have anything against the two guys he'd been teamed up with. Everyone had been right. Despite his issues with his military service, Roman had been very good at teamwork. He had no problem with orders, as long as they were the right orders, and he knew his limitations. Dean was better at coordinating a unit. Seth was better at the distance surveillance. It worked, and thankfully, they meshed well together.

But, still, this should have been Roman's thing. He was supposed to be able to let all of the frustration out, and with others waiting on him, he couldn't do it. This was going to have to be a quick one, no fun and games, and with as long as it had been since he'd had fun and games, he had really been hoping to get some soon. Besides, he had followed this guy as closely as cameras and satellites had let him. He felt a connection with his prey, now, one that could only be broken by their final dance together. Dean knew that, too, which was why Roman was inside and Dean was on perimeter. If Roman didn't personally take care of this guy, he would be stuck in his head as a failed mission. Roman wouldn't get to have fun with him, but at least he'd be dead and they could move on.

Roman moved quietly through the house. His feet barely made a sound as he walked across the floor. He ran through everything he had discovered over his weeks of stalking. The mark lived alone. He was divorced, and his ex-wife had custody of their children. He saw the children every other weekend. He drove his car to a parking garage every morning, took the Subway to work, and returned to his car every evening by 8:03pm, unless business or one of his girlfriends kept him busy.

Roman didn't know exactly what this guy had done to get on someone's hit list, and he didn't care. All he needed to know was that he was given the green light to take him out.

He moved up the stairs, his gloved hand sliding along the banister. Roman caught a glimpse of himself in the reflective glass of a portrait on the wall, his long black hair hidden beneath a black ski cap. Underneath the ski cap was another tight cap molded against his head to make sure no loose strands could come out and fall to the floor. His eyes were dark and cold, but there was a smile on his face. He might not have been able to have a good long time with his prey, but the killing would be fun all the same, and he looked forward to it.

Roman continued up the stairs, his movement slow and silent. He walked the hallway and counted the bedrooms. His prey was behind the fourth door on the left. Roman turned and the smiled wider at the bedroom door, already open. He didn't have to worry about the possibility of rusty hinges.

Roman slipped into the room, easily, and for a moment, he stood just inside the bedroom and watched. His prey slept on his side, facing the window. He was a lump beneath the covers, peaceful, unknowing. His life was about to end, and he was probably dreaming about sex or money. He was completely clueless, and the surprise in his eyes when Roman pounced would be amazing.

Static came over the headset before Seth's voice ruined Roman's moment. "Uh guys? We've got company?"

Dean responded, "What?"

"Four guys," Seth said, "dressed in black. I can't see their faces, but if my month worth of Rosetta Stone works at all, I'm gonna guess they're speaking Korean. I tapped into their communications feed. I guess this is why they sent a team instead of just Roman."

"Double booking," Dean said. There was humor in his voice. "That's not smart. Roman, do your thing. I've got this outside. Seth, keep an eye out. Get to work, boys."

Roman had no more time to enjoy the moment. He practically flew across the room, landing on the bed, and his prey, with a hard fall. His prey's eyes opened wide and Roman had one big hand around his neck and another around his mouth before he could even squeak. Roman moved the hand on his mouth to his neck, forming a circle with both hands. He stared into his prey's eyes as he squeezed, watching the man's eyes bulge, and his face turn red, and then purple. He grinned down at him, and he knew that the fear in his prey's eyes wasn't just because of the hands around his neck. That fear was because those hands led up to a man who was having too much fun. Those hands led up to a living, breathing nightmare.

By the time his prey's lips went blue, Roman had a raging hard-on. Roman released his neck, grabbed both sides of his head, then wrenched his head sharply to the side. He was no longer his prey, now. Eyes staring up at him, he was now just a piece of meat.

Roman's voice was strangled and scratchy as he said, "Done." He climbed off of the bed and adjusted himself in his pants. The erection was gone, but his body still jumped with energy. He hadn't gotten a full release. The turn-on was just gone without his hands around a prey's neck.

"Good, now get out here," Dean called out. "One of them is on his way to the house." His words were punctuated by gasps and grunts. He must have been fighting. And Roman still had killing energy to spare. He turned and jogged out of the room.

Outside, Dean was using everything he had picked up from Sheamus in hand-to-hand combat, and a few of those martial arts tricks that he'd picked up from Seth. He wasn't as flexible as Seth, and the flips weren't happening, but he could dodge and weave. There was already one body on the ground at his feet, the victim of a quick bullet to the back of the skull. His absence had turned his partner's head a few steps ahead, and before Dean could get his sights trained on him, the guy had rushed him and thrown him to the ground.

Dean got on his feet quickly, though, and as he bobbed and weaved, he looked for a good place to strike. His handgun was on the ground and he pulled a large knife from his vest. Moonlight bounced off of the blade as he twirled the handle in his right hand. Dean flipped the knife for a good fighting grip. His opponent stopped flipping like a fucking idiot and pulled out a blade of his own. Dean's knife was wide. When Roman handed it to him, he said it was similar to the K-Bar he'd been forced to leave in his apartment. The knife Dean's opponent pulled out was thin and the point was sharp.

Dean jumped back as his opponent lunged at him with a swipe. His hair was falling in his face and he gave it a quick swipe to the back. He jumped again and again as two more swipes came his way. He circled, looking for an opening. His opponent leaped at him and Dean took a twirling step to the side. As he moved, his arm shot out. The grunt from the other guy told him that he'd landed a hit. He came out of his spin fast and capitalized.

Dean went in low, slicing at the man's thighs, the left, and then the right. Instinctually, his opponent bent down toward his wounds. Dean stepped to the side and jumped up. As he came down, the knife shined in the glow of the moon. It landed in his opponent's back, and he started to go down. That wasn't enough for Dean. He didn't stop until he knew the other guy was dead. He yanked his knife out of his opponent's back, grabbed him by the back of the head and jerked back. He brought the knife across his neck in a smooth, clean swipe, then let the body drop to the ground. Dean took in a deep breath and just for the fuck of it, kicked the guy at his feet.

Roman's voice came in his ear. "My guy's down. Didn't make it into the house."

Dean did a quick count. Two dead at his feet, one killed by Roman… "There's still one more." Seth had said there were four.

"You find them," Seth said. "I'm pulling up with the van."

Smart kid, Dean thought. Seth wasn't too big on the killing, but at least he knew that they couldn't leave the bodies of four dead North Koreans just lying around. That would be sloppy.

Dean heard, "Fuck!" And then there was a growl, a shit ton of grunting, and then silence. He waited, standing still, his eyes on the mansion, until he heard Roman's voice again. "Fourth one is down. Ready for evac."

Dean wiped his blade on the pants of the guy at his feet, then put it back in its sheath. He knelt down and felt with his hands until he found his handgun. That went back into its holster. Dean stood up and grabbed both of his kills by the ankles and dragged them toward the gate.

He was gonna have to have a talk with the top two about this shit. If there was even a hint that somebody else might have been on this job, they should have told them. If they were playing games with them, giving them extra tests, he was gonna give somebody fucking hell and a half.

He did consider, though, that they didn't know. Dean considered that this guy just had enemies, and the one that hired Shield weren't the only ones out there that could find a hit squad. Dean kind of liked his current set up. He got to kill without the threat of prison hanging over his head, he had a hot crazy chick that snuck into his room at night for fun and games, and he had a sense of security he couldn't remember feeling even as a kid. He'd hate to have to give all of that up because his bosses were assholes.

He had friends, too, which was weird as shit, as far as Dean was concerned. He, Roman and Seth weren't going to go out on the town and pick up chicks together, but they talked. They hung out, as much as three guys could hang in an underground assassin's lair. And most importantly, these guys knew how to shut up and let him take the lead. Dean wasn't really a team player, by nature, but he was one hell of a leader. And this team they set him up with, it wasn't so bad.

Dean reached the gate, and turned to see Roman about ten feet behind him. Where Dean dragged his kills, Roman had each man over his shoulders. He walked like the extra weight was no big deal. The muscles on that guy, it was no wonder.

Roman stepped up beside him and Dean gave him a jerking nod. "Feeling better, big man?"

Roman grinned and it was still fucking creepy. "Like you wouldn't believe." He snorted, and spit out something like a laugh. "Think they'll stop locking me in at night, now?"

Dean laughed. "Shit, man, they let AJ out, and sometimes, I think she's crazier than you are. You might actually have a shot this time."

Dean turned as Seth pulled the van up. The gates opened and Dean marched through, dragging his dead along behind him. Seth jumped out of the driver's side of the van and ran around to the back. He jerked the doors open and scrambled inside. Dean followed him around the back, Roman coming with his dead still on his shoulders.

Roman moved up past Dean and dumped his two into the back of the van. Seth looked down at the bodies, then up at Roman. "What are we gonna do with 'em?" he asked.

There was that fucking grin again. Roman Reigns was one creepy motherfucker, and Dean was sure as shit glad that he was on his side. He never wanted to face that man as an enemy. "Leave it to me." Roman turned and grabbed Dean's kills and tossed them in on top of his own, then reached out a hand toward Seth.

Seth took the offered hand and Roman pulled him out over the top of the pile of bodies. He set Seth down, then climbed up into the back of the van. "You two ride up front."

"Really?" Seth looked at Roman, then at Dean, then back to Roman. "You're gonna ride back here with them?"

"And there's another choice? You wanna do it?"

Seth shook his head. "Hell no. I'm driving. Dean's got shotgun."

"I always have fucking shotgun," Dean grunted, but he smirked, too, because this was fun. He had his energetic, slightly neurotic at times tech and his pathological serial killer with a van full of dead bodies. Why shouldn't he be having fun?

Dean looked at Roman and asked, "Bury or burn?"

Roman pulled a large knife out of his vest and held it up. "Neither."

Seth swallowed hard, but Dean just laughed. "My kinda guy," he said, then grabbed the doors of the van and slapped the back closed. He turned and clapped a hand on Seth's shoulder. "Come on, kid, let's get outta here. We've got bodies to get rid of."

Dean had never loved a job so much in his life.


	13. Sweet Release

Trish laid her hand against the cool steel of the door. She knew this would go simply, and the way she wanted. She was an observant woman, and there was no doubt in her that the attraction she had toward Reigns was mutual. She saw it in his eyes, the flash of desire before it shifted into something more feral and a lot more dangerous. It made Trish do a double and triple check on his file, to make sure she hadn't missed any kind of sexual deviance or perversion in his file the first few times around. After the triple check, she was satisfied that they didn't have a serial killer and a rapist on the payroll. He was just a serial killer.

His intensity turned her on, the coldness of it when he went to work. She sat during the debrief looking at his stormy eyes, watching the thrill that made them dance as he gave her a detailed blow by blow of his part of the action during the mission. Ambrose had been excited about his part, but his was more an excitement for life than anything else. Rollins was unnerved by the dead men in the back of his van, and it made his excitement of the jittery variety. But, Reigns… There was sex in his eyes as he talked about his hands around the target's throat.

It didn't reach any other part of his face, though, and Trish was pretty sure that turned her on more than anything else. He could control his facial expressions, leave it all in his eyes. That was a skill that not many possessed. His voice didn't waver, his breath didn't hitch. The lines of his face stayed smooth as he spoke. It was the only thing about him that reminded her of Orton. He was amazing with his eyes. And that was probably why she was standing at the door in the middle of the night, prepared to offer the killer on the other side of the door more than his nocturnal freedom.

Trish turned the knob and the door clicked. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and made a phone call. The line rang once, then there was another click in the door. She put her phone back in her pocket, then slipped inside of the room. She let the door close behind her, then leaned back against it.

Reigns lied on his bed, his back against the wall, his eyes on her. He wore loose black sweat pants that, even sitting down, Trish could tell would hang low on his waist when he was standing. His black tank top was tight against his chest. His black hair fell in wet tendrils over his shoulders. His feet were bare, crossed at the ankles. He stared at her with eyes the color of dark night's stormy sky. He looked more comfortable than he had any time she had seen him since bringing him into Shield.

Trish puckered her lips. She pressed her hands flat against the door behind her. "How are you feeling?"

Roman grunted. "I was fine until you walked in here."

Trish grunted. With as much as they knew about Roman Reigns, there was still so much more that they would never know unless they found a psychiatrist that he would actually talk to about all of the things he kept hidden. The words were loaded with distaste, but the tone he used and the twitch in his leg, the way he rubbed his thigh- They were all hints of attraction, of arousal.

"I've come to tell you that Paul and I have decided that you're safe enough to let out, now."

"Appreciate it."

"You don't sound like it."

"Really didn't have going out on my mind," he said, his voice holding a low growl. "In fact, I'd just gotten most of my problems in this place off of my mind before you walked in the door with the good news."

The corner of Trish's mouth turned up in a smirk. She pushed off of the door and walked slowly to him, putting every ounce within her of _I want you_ into her hips. Her heels clicked against the bare floor as she moved. Her arms swung at her sides. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulders. As she approached the foot of the bed, she reached up and unfastened the buttons of her suit jacket. She pushed it back over her shoulders and let it slide down her arms. At the foot of the bed, she tossed the jacket onto the bed, to land on his feet.

Trish tossed her hair back behind her shoulders, then looked at him. "As you know," she said, "the military has a no fraternization rule." Roman grunted in response, and Trish grinned at him. "Like I told you when we met, we are most definitely not the military."

Trish had always been a woman aware of her own sexuality and the effect that she had on men. She never used it when she was in the military. She always kept the full intensity of it buried, because the last thing she needed was to add to the fight she already had in front of her. Once she was with Paul, however, she got to let it loose. She had no problem using her assets to lure a target into a bedroom, an empty office, or an elevator that was set to stall between floors so she could get the kill in a private place.

This was better than work, though. This was knowing that when she was finished, she would actually get some satisfaction out of it. Trish had always considered how unfair it was to her that those men all got one last boner before she put a knife in their throat or sent the tiny bones in the nose up to the brain with a swift knife-edge chop of her hand, and all she got was a debrief at the end. Some of those targets were pretty hot.

Trish stepped around the corner of the bed and walked up the side. She reached his waist, and they moved at the same time. As Trish lowered herself to the bed, Roman moved his body over to the side and sat up. He leaned into her and the growl that crawled up his throat sent shivers through her body. Her eyelids fluttered, then closed. When they opened, he was right in her face, and she hadn't even felt him move.

"What are we talking here?" Roman asked her.

"Sex," she said, "pure and simple." She reached out and touched his hair, a brush of her palm at the side of his head. Her hand came back wet and she wiped her hand down the right armband of his tank top. She dropped her hand to his thigh, and already, she could feel the fabric of his pants moving as he pushed against it, hardening with no more than the promise of sex.

Roman reached out and his left hand fell against her breast. Trish took in a sharp breath. Her body tightened, her nipples hardened. It wasn't only his touch that aroused her. It was his confidence. He didn't hesitate. He didn't wait for her to change her mind. Again, it reminded her of Orton. He'd never waited, either.

Trish leaned in and spoke in a husky voice. "Tell me what you want to do to me, Roman." She was a hair's breath away from his lips, close enough to feel his breath on her lips as he parted his lips. "Tell me what you've wanted to do."

"I want to put my hands here." His hands slid up her neck. Trish went still, but he didn't squeeze, they just settled on her skin. "And then…" She felt his fingers pressing in and wondered if she had misjudged him. She knew she hadn't misjudged his sexual desire, but maybe she'd been wrong about the way he went about it. She thought there was a part of him that separated sex from the kill, but she might have been wrong, and if she was, well, she was glad that her hand was still on his thigh. At least she was close to a saving grace.

Roman's hands surged up her neck to cup her face. He jerked her close and his lips pressed hard against hers. Trish moaned against his mouth as she squeezed his thigh, digging her nails into the surprisingly thin material of his sweat pants. Her other hand moved up to his shoulder.

Roman released her face and went for her waist. Trish squeaked against his mouth as he quickly flipped her onto her back. He pulled back from her mouth and stared down at her. A shaky breath pushed past Trish's parted, trembling lips. Roman leaned back and his hands moved to the front of her shirt. He slid his fingers between the buttons. Trish shivered at the warmth of his touch as his fingers brushed her skin. He yanked and buttons flew, one of them hitting him in the face before tumbling to the bed. He didn't even bat an eye.

His head dipped and Trish choked back a scream. Roman's warm tongue swirled a circle around her navel, then shot up in a straight line to the bottom edge of her bra. She felt his lips pucker against her skin and her legs rose, bending at the knee. She tossed one leg over his back. Trish grabbed the back of his head and pushed him into her skin. Her stomach rolled as he bared his teeth and scraped them against her skin. Her body pulsed and shook, and dear God, she wasn't even completely undressed. Either three years celibate had all of her nerves on edge, or Roman Reigns was just that good. Not wanting to deny both as the cause, Trish gave six to one, half dozen to the other.

Roman jerked his head up and Trish's hand fell to the bed. He flattened his right hand on her stomach and snaked it up her body to cup her breast. He squeezed and Trish's back arched, her eyes closed. He moved up further, his hand brushing over the smooth satin of her bra, curving over the fleshy mound of cleavage, and then he stopped.

She opened her eyes as he said, "What's this?"

And then she remembered the dog tags around her neck. Roman's fingers were surprisingly gentle as they slid beneath the tags and lifted them in the air. Trish looked down, her chin digging into her breastplate, and watched his thumb trace over the etched silver. "Orton," he said, "R.K."

Trish snatched the tags from his hand and whipped them over her head. She dropped them on the bedside table, her fingers lingering over the engravings before letting them go. "That," she said, "is something I don't want to talk about." She was not about to let a man who had been dead for three years ruin the first potential orgasm she'd had since him. "And," she said, "if you want to keep this up, you won't mention it, either."

Roman looked down at her and said nothing. Shit, she thought. He was going to ruin this. He was going to say some dumb shit about her wanting someone else, and Trish was going to have to slap him. Why didn't men understand that women had urges, too? Having two X chromosomes did not negate the desire for sex with no strings attached. Yes, she was still in love with a man who was three years dead. No, she didn't have the desire to have a relationship with Roman. She just wanted sex, plain and simple, just like him. It was in his eyes when he looked at her, in the way he tried to be nonchalant about readjusting himself in his pants when she walked past him. He wanted sex. She wanted sex.

Dear God, she thought, let's just fuck already!

Roman's lips turned up in a wicked grin, and there was no doubt in Trish's mind that the only death that was in the gleam in his eyes was the one the French called _la petit morte_. His tongue snaked out and ran across his lips before retreating back into his mouth.

"I can do that," Roman said, and then he kissed her, and he touched her, and yeah… He could do that.


	14. Back From the Dead

**Three months later**

The unpaved market road was dusty, and Stacy was ready to go home. Nearly four months, and two different countries, later, and she hadn't even gotten a kill out of it. Yes, she'd been prepared for that, but the fact was a buzzkill, regardless. She was so frustrated that she couldn't even come up with an identity that would be content with it. She had so many fictional people living in her head, and by this point, they all wanted to kill someone.

Stacy tossed her head to the side and looked at her husband as he maneuvered them through the bazaar. They had both been so many different people over the years. Their real names, the names on their original birth certificates, were so far back in the past that sometimes, Stacy didn't even remember the person she had been born. She had spent the most important years of her life as Stacy Keibler, and that had become the true identity.

Her husband, though—She knew there were parts of his old military life that he'd never let go, like the last name as the only name. When he introduced himself to her, he had put out a hand for a strong shake and introduced himself as Mizanin. Almost everyone called him that. Over time, he'd grown comfortable enough, civilian enough, that it could be shortened to Miz. That was his concession to civilian comfort, and as time passed, it became an identity of its own. Miz was cocky and smooth, and he had an infectious laugh. She loved Miz.

But, sometimes, she called him by his first name, and that was okay with him, because those times were such influential moments in their lives together. She told Mike that she would marry him. She said I do to Mike at the altar. And when he was shot—She had screamed his name at the top of her lungs before emptying her clip into the shooter. So many bullets had gone into Mike that she'd felt the need to grind her stiletto heel into the guy's eye, just to make sure that if the bullets hadn't done him in, he had one last bit of pain. And it was Mike that she had knelt beside, Mike's whose hand she had held when she thought he was going to die.

Mike was there when Randy went missing, too. He was the strong hand at her back that kept her upright. He was the guy that had understood that one of her best friends was gone, probably dead, but she couldn't cry just yet, because her other best friend needed her to be strong. Mike held her when they were alone, though, and she alternated between crying and cursing. Mike held her up at the funeral.

Stacy sighed and rolled her head to look out the passenger side mirror. There was no use in thinking about Randy. It only served to make her angry. Shield was their job. Paul was their boss. But, he had done his best to make it feel more like a family. Yes, they were a family of psychopaths and criminals, but they were still a family. That someone would turn their back on their family the way Barrett had- It was unbelievable, and it was sickening, and thinking of Randy, especially when she hadn't gotten a kill out of this latest assignment, only served to make her want to hurt someone.

Stacy watched the people moving around the bazaar. When she was in remote locations, she always found herself searching, just in case. Yes, they had found blood. There had been no trace of Randy in years. But, that didn't mean that he wasn't still out there. The chance for escape was always there. She imagined that if she did find him, he would have some kind of amnesia as his excuse for staying away. And if he didn't, she would hug him so hard before she punched him right in his nose.

She knew it was a pipe dream, the last little bits of the hopeful girl she had been in the past, clinging to the chance that the world wasn't just death and destruction, that there was life out there, but it didn't stop her from looking. Even though she knew that the chances of spotting Randy were—

Stacy's thoughts stopped as she caught a flash of a man walking out from between two tents. It was only a glimpse, but her mind was trained to pick out details. His head was shaved, and his clothes were loose, nice, but a less tailored fit than Randy used to wear, but still—The curve of his jaw, the shape of his nose, and most importantly, the walk as the man slid his hand into his pants and moved away from the tented area—

"Stop the car." Stacy tossed off her seatbelt and turned around in her seat until she was kneeling. She could still see his profile. He was turning into a blur as Miz kept driving.

"What?"

"Stop the car," Stacy repeated. She watched the man turn, begin walking in her direction. "Mike, stop the car, now!"

He slammed on the breaks and Stacy was out of the door even as the tires screeched and dust blew up. The dust burned Stacy's eyes, but she ignored it. She ran through the cloud of dust and through the growing crowd of people who seemed to swarm in front of her. She thought for a moment that she was seeing things, that she would reach this person and it would be a stranger. But, she called out his name, and son of a bitch, his head popped up.

Stacy looked over her shoulder. "It's him, Mike! It's him!" Her husband was following her, his white linen pants and shirt dirtied by the dust cloud that he ran through, but he stayed with her.

She turned around and focused on Randy. He was there, standing in a dispersing crowd of bazaar shoppers and he was just staring at her. He was rescued! Totally by chance, but still, he was rescued, and he'd been rescued by his friends. Why wasn't he running toward her? Why was he making her work so hard for it?

Stacy skidded to a stop in front of him, just a few feet away. He looked good, too good for someone that had been on the run for three years. He had more tattoos peeking out of his rolled up sleeves and the open neck of his shirt than Stacy remembered. Again, she noticed that all of his hair was gone. His eyes looked tired, but as he looked at her, a fury grew in them.

"Randy…" Stacy took in a deep breath. Her chest heaved, her lungs burned. She could run so much faster and harder than that, but that was when she was prepared for the run, when she was able to really get her mind and body into it, instead of just taking off without a thought of how far she was going to have to go, what the heat was like, where she was going.

Randy's eyes moved side to side, looking for an escape. Fear welled up in her, an angry fear that they were all wrong. She and Trish swore that Randy would never turn traitor, but instead of embracing her, he was looking for a way to get out. But, no, she knew Randy. Trish knew Randy, and he wasn't the type. He wouldn't run out on them like that, he wouldn't turn. He'd kill them all and just walk away before he turned traitor.

Maybe the amnesia idea was true. Maybe he didn't know her. But, he knew his own name. It didn't make sense.

Stacy took a step forward. "Randy, it's me," she said. "It's Stacy."

She reached out to him and, apparently, that was the wrong thing to do. Randy's fist came flying, and it was so unexpected that Stacy couldn't dodge it. She was able to move back enough that she didn't get the full force of the blow, but it still spun her to the side and knocked her to the ground. Then she felt Miz flying over her, and heard both men grunt as he tacked Randy to the ground.

Stacy pushed herself to her fight and spun around. For the first time in years, she didn't know what to do. Randy and Mike fought each other, their fists pummeling one another. People were shouting and running around them. If something didn't give soon, police were going to come, and she didn't know if their identities would hold up to as much scrutiny as this would bring.

The men separated. Blood ran down Randy's face from a cut above his eye. Mike's lip was bloody. They rushed each other again, and once more, the fists and feet flew as they fought. They had trained together, worked together. Even after all of these years, they knew each other's moves and how to counter them. And they both knew that fighting was going to get them nowhere at the same time.

They each took three steps back and whipped their hands behind their backs. They came back holding guns, pointed at one another. Someone in the crowd screamed, but Stacy didn't look to see who. She kept her eyes on the men as they faced off. Stacy walked up to her husband and put a hand on his back. "Mike, back down."

"Fuck that."

"Mike, it's Randy."

"It's a traitor, that's what it is." His arm didn't waver, and neither did his voice. The only thing that showed his anger was his face, the narrowing of his eyes and the way his lips pressed tightly together.

"Bullshit!" Randy spat out at him. "You come to kill me and you call me a traitor? Fuck you!"

"Three years, you asshole," Mike yelled at him. "Three years. Do you know what we've been through?"

"What you've been through? Ha!" Randy took a step forward. "I called, you son of a bitch! I called in for a rescue, and you know what I got? Somebody's worst coming in to take me out. So, fuck you, Miz, and fuck her, too. Fuck all of you!"

Stacy saw his arm tightening and knew that Randy was about to fire. Her mind tried to quickly process everything that had been said. He had called. Whoever took him- He must have gotten away and he put a call in, and instead of rescue, he got a hit squad.

Stacy risked a glance toward Mike and knew that he was figuring it out, too. Barrett wasn't the only traitor inside of Shield. Something was very wrong, very fucked up, and the realization was making him waver. A moment ago, she expected them both to shoot each other at the same time. Now, with Mike thinking about the implications of what Randy said, with Randy not giving a damn what they were saying, she knew that she was about to watch her husband get shot again.

A twitch in his eye told her when Randy was about to fire and it was enough of a tell for her to shove Mike out of the way. Stacy felt the heat of the bullet as it passed her cheek, felt the burn as the side of the bullet graze her and split open her skin. She and Mike hit the ground and her head whipped around to see Randy turning to run. Three years ago, he would have put a bullet in both of their heads. He wouldn't have stopped to talk, and he damn sure wouldn't have left them laying alive on the ground.

Stacy reached down to the sheath on her thigh and pulled out a long, thin knife. She whispered, "Sorry, Randy," then tossed it. She didn't aim for a kill shot, just to get him down. The knife hit him just above the knee and he stumbled. He tried to push forward, but the pressure of the knife brought him down again. She rolled off of Mike and took off at a run, and again, she felt her husband at her back, chasing her.

Mike overtook her, stretching his strides out further than hers. Randy was getting back up and he tackled him from behind. They rolled on the ground, until Mike was on top. Stacy reached them in time to see that Randy was face up. She also made it in time to see Mike's fist come down on his face. It dazed Randy enough that, for a moment, he was still, and that was all Stacy needed.

Stacy dropped down beside him, reaching under her dress as she did, pulling a syringe from its own hiding place. She bit the cap off with her teeth and drove the needle into the large vein in the side of his neck. Randy's eyes opened wide, and she saw something she'd never seen in his eyes before. She saw fear. He had managed to survive for three years, and now he was going to die, and it scared him.

The drug was fast-acting, and his eyes were already starting to close. While he could still see her, Stacy grabbed his face with both hands and told him, "We didn't betray you, Randy. None of us betrayed you, especially Trish. We're taking you home."

His eyes closed before he could answer and Stacy looked up at Mike. His breaths came in hard gasps, his shoulders hunching with each one. "We gotta go," he said, pushing himself to his feet. Mike reached down and struggled to lift Randy's dead weight, but he did manage to get him to his feet. Stacy pushed at Randy's back as a steadying force, as a balance. Mike grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him over his shoulder.

They ran back to the car as quickly as they could go, which was a lot slower than they both would have liked. Mike dropped Randy into the backseat, then dropped into the driver's seat. He picked up a satellite phone from the floor and tossed it to Stacy. "Call Kaitlyn," he said. "Get us an emergency evac. Tell her nobody knows about this but Paul until we get back."

"Mike?" She looked at him, confused. "But, Trish…"

"We'll tell her ourselves. For now, just Paul and Kaitlyn." He shifted the car into gear and sped off down the street. "For now," he said, "just get us a ride home. Get us the hell out of here."


	15. Interruptus

Trish closed her eyes and let the sensations overtake her. She let herself respond to his tongue, his hands, his lips, his breath on her skin before that tongue and those lips touched her, before those teeth scraped against her skin. She didn't have to think too much when she was with him. She didn't have to think, at all, outside of concerns for her own safety, and enough time had passed that she almost trusted him now. Give him a few more months, and she just might trust him completely… in bed, at least.

Roman growled and Trish's eyes popped open. He hovered over her, his eyes as much a conundrum as the man, himself. The lust was obvious, taking his gray eyes from steel to stormy. But there were intermittent moments of pure black, his eyes almost demonic as any light went away, and Trish knew that was lust of a different kind. That was the passion that turned his fingers stroking the bend of her neck, to those long fingers wrapping around her neck and snapping it quickly to the side.

It was a thrill for her, more than anything. Trish was no idiot. She knew to fear the man, and she did. Healthy fear kept a girl alive. But, at the same time, he intrigued her. He pulled at her body in a way that no man had in the last three years. He only needed to look at her and she started to tremble. It didn't matter what she saw in his eyes—Death, mayhem, sex, it was all the same to her body. It was all thrilling.

And the best part was that Roman seemed no more interested in emotional attachments than Trish. She wasn't even sure he was capable of those feelings. That suited her perfectly. The last thing she needed was a man who wanted to answers. He simply understood that she was a woman with needs, and he was a man so very capable of taking care of those needs.

Roman dropped his body down, crushing her. Trish took in a deep breath as Roman ground his pelvis down on top of her. Breathing was difficult, and Trish was sure that obvious fact was as much the cause for Roman's hardening erection as her breasts pressed against his bare chest. He kissed her, his lips crushing, cutting off her breath. Trish's head started to swim, but at the same time, her nerves tingled and her body started to buck. Well, this was one thing she had never tried, and she just might have to try it again some time.

Roman pushed himself up and Trish heaved in a great breath. Her lungs burned as she took in breath after breath. Roman looked down at her with a grin so sadistic that it scared her, but still so sexy that Trish shivered.

Trish reached up to grab his face, then spat out a disgusted curse as someone knocked hard on the door. Well, at least they had knocked.

Roman's head whipped around and he let out a feral growl before shouting, "Go away!"

"Sorry!" Roman growled again, but Trish recognized the voice. Really? At this moment? She wasn't even due back from Gamma for a couple of days. "I really need to talk to Trish!"

"Nobody here by that name!" Roman barked.

"Except, you're lying, because even if her tracker didn't lead me to this room, everybody apparently knows what goes on with the two of you after one of your missions. So, yeah, I need to talk to Trish, right now!"

Roman whipped his head back around. Trish sighed. "Did you hear that change in her voice? From timid to top bitch?" She sighed again. "She's not going away."

Roman groaned as he slid off of Trish. He landed on his side, and Trish tossed him a sideways glance as she pushed herself up, then slipped off of the bed. She squatted down to grab her shirt from the floor. Trish thrust her arms into the sleeves and fastened enough buttons to at least cover her bra. At least, if an interruption was going to come, it didn't wait too long. At least she didn't have to completely redress.

Trish stepped up to the door and ran a hand through her hair. She reached out and yanked open the door. "Look, Stacy, I realize you've been gone a while, but this isn't the time—"

"Stop." Stacy's hand came up, and the whole moment was so abrupt that it shut Trish up. That was a rare feat for anyone, let alone one of her operatives. "This is important. So, straighten yourself up and come with me."

Trish rose a curious eyebrow and Stacy shook her head. She moved her hand up and down, palm facing up, toward Trish, in a gesture that was purely judgmental of her current state. Well, if she wanted to get down to business, she should have showed up before Trish had started taking her clothes off.

Except, this wasn't business, not solely, was it? She was acting very Stacy, and very unlike the operative Keibler. As an operative, yes, she could be bold, but this was a familiarity that, when something was purely business, Stacy left at the door before entering her office.

Trish turned around and looked over her shoulder. Roman sat up on the bed, his eyes hard. He was unfulfilled. Boohoo, so was she. Of course, when she was left unsatisfied, she didn't feel like killing anyone.

Trish tilted her head to the side as she asked, "Do I need to lock this door tonight?"

Roman's hand fell on the tent in his pants. He grunted. "I can take care of it."

Trish smirked. "If I don't get back to you, first."

He looked past her, his head tilting to the side. Trish turned around to see the stern look on Stacy's usually light features, then looked back at Roman. He pressed his hand down on his crotch and grunted. "You won't."

"Lovely," Stacy said. "Enjoy yourself." She reached out and took Trish by the arm. "We have to go," she told her. "Now."

Stacy pulled her across the room's threshold and Trish jerked her arm back. "Jesus, Stacy, my shoes!" Trish slipped back into the room and knelt down beside the bed. She found one black heel peeking out from beneath the bed. The other one was further back and Trish had to reach back, half her arm disappearing before she found it.

Trish stood and turned her back on the bed, on the man lying in the bed. Roman wasn't the only one left with an itch that needed to be scratched, and if she looked at him with her body so recently tingling, she just might have to tell Stacy to go screw herself, or her husband if she so desired, until she was finished screwing Roman.

Trish closed the door behind her, then reached out for the wall. She held herself up with one hand as she put on one shoe, then the other. She stood up straight and started to button the rest of her shirt. "Alright," she said, as she started walking, "what's going on? This can't be business. You weren't even on assignment for me, and any intel you came across could have either waited until later or gone straight to Paul."

"The assignment for Gamma was a bust," Stacy said. "And you're going the wrong way. This way." She turned and walked in the other direction. Trish jogged up behind her as she reached the last button. "They sent us back without a kill, but we still found something."

Trish followed her to the elevator. As they waited, Trish adjusted her blouse over her slacks and tied around her waist the sash that dangled at her sides.

"And you couldn't tell it to Paul when you realized that I was busy?"

The door to the elevator opened and Stacy stepped inside. "Speaking of you being busy…"

Trish followed her into the elevator. "Can we not, please? I have needs. Aren't you one of the ones that gave me shit because I ignored the fact that I have needs?"

"That was before." She sighed and leaned forward to push the button that would take them—Trish expected them to go up. Instead, she slipped a key into the plate at the same time that she pushed the button that would take them even further down into the depths of Shield.

"What's going on, Stacy?"

She pulled back from the wall and turned to Trish. Her eyes were too serious for this to not be kill-related. And yet, she knew that Stacy wouldn't have bantered with her or let her go off on a tangent about her sex life if this were kill-related. There was something else happening, something that was probably going to give a new meaning to the words complicated and covert.

"There's no easy way to say this," Stacy told her, "so I'm just going to say it."

Stacy opened her mouth, and only then did Trish get a really good look at her face. When she left, Stacy's skin had been perfect. Now a red burn mark covered her left cheekbone. Her hair was disheveled, wisps falling from the bun that held her hair back from her face. Her clothes were dirty, dust hanging on to the creases and wrinkles.

"What the hell happened out there, Stacy? Where's Mike? Because you look like the Miz took off a long time ago."

"We found Randy, Trish."

She stared at her. "I think we're under attack," Trish said.

"What?"

"Somebody must be pumping something into the air system, because I'm hearing things. I'm watching your lips move, but I'm hearing things come out of them that's not—" She shook her head. "We have to contact Paul. We might need to evacuate."

"Trish—"

"Take us back up, Stacy. We need to evacuate." She stepped forward and tried to grab the emergency phone, but Stacy caught her arm. "What are you doing, Stacy? We have to evacuate."

"No one is pumping anything in here, Trish," Stacy said with a sigh, "and you're not hearing anything. Mike and I found Randy."

Trish felt her throat tightening. She opened her mouth to speak and her mouth was dry. Trish moved her tongue around, forcing saliva to wet her tongue, her gums, then flow down her throat. She tried again. "You found—" She stopped, shook her head. "You found Randy's body."

"No," Stacy said. "We found Randy." She paused, then said, "Alive."

"That's not possible, Stacy. It's been too long. Randy wouldn't be alive."

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Trish stared out into the harsh lights of the corridor. Everything was a blinding white, the light shining off of every pale and metal surface. Trish winced and rose her arm against the light. She took a shaky step forward, into the last secret that Shield kept from its employees.

Everyone knew that there was something else down there, but no one knew exactly what. They were all levels that no one wanted to go near. Some had an idea that this was where personal, in-house decommissions took place, and they would be right, but those were higher up. This glowing level was at the very bottom. This was where the forbidden were hidden, those who would disappear from the face of the planet, living under heavy sedation, until it was decided if they could rejoin society or if they would die and be carried off to the crematorium.

"Why—"

"We had to sedate him," Stacy said as she stepped up behind her. "There's—It's not just us finding Randy, Trish. There's the story behind finding him. There's so much…." She stopped. Trish felt Stacy's body move as she took in a slow breath, and felt the hair at the crown of her head move as Stacy exhaled.

"What happened, Stacy?"

Trish moved forward. The further into the corridor she moved, the more her eyes adjusted to the light. She listened for sounds, because the room that made the noise would be the room he was in. There was no one else down there, no traitors or targets to hold. That floor was kept to an immaculate shine for the guests that would come. It was nice and clean for him, and the sounds—

It wasn't just sound that helped her find him. She smelled Paul's cologne as she moved through the hall. She saw dust on the floor, scuffs and dirt, too, all things that would have to be cleaned, because this floor was always so clean. It was secure. It was—

"He attacked when he saw us, Trish." She only partially listened as Stacy talked, because she was listening for the voices, for the beeping machines, for anything that was him. "He thought we'd found him and been sent in to kill him. I think he's been in hiding," Stacy said.

"Why would he think you wanted to kill him?"

"Because he said when he originally escaped the people who had him, he called in. He said he called in to base, Trish, and instead of getting rescued, he got a hit squad instead. He thinks we turned on him."

Trish stopped moving, not because of what Stacy said, but because she had finally heard the noises, because this was the strongest concentration of Paul's cologne, because there was a pile of dirt at her feet. Trish reached slowly into her pocket as she turned to the left. The chain in her pocket bumped along her skin as she passed it, moving he hand in all the way until her fingers scissored the dog tags. She'd been wearing them when she woke up that day. She had shoved them in her pocket when she knocked on Roman's bedroom door. She had planned to put them back on when they were finished.

She pulled the tags out of her pocket and closed her fist around them. Trish rose her head slowly and her breath stopped before it made its way out of her chest. Lying on a bed, an IV in his arm, he looked different. Without his hair and with the extra tattoos, he looked harder, an odd thought for Trish, because he had been pretty damn hard in the first place.

And yet, he also looked exactly the same. Lying there with his eyes closed, he looked at peace. His lips puckered slightly. His nose twitched slightly. His eyelids fluttered. He looked like he did every morning before he woke up, when Trish moved around the room because he had just come back from a mission and needed rest, while she still had an early morning and a long day of work ahead of her.

He looked like a different man.

He looked just like Randy.

Trish put her hand up to the glass. She flattened her palm against the cool pane and the dog tags clicked against the glass. Paul's head turned, and beside him, so did Mike. Paul turned, said something to him, then came out into the hallway. "Trish—"

"Why is he down here, Paul?" Trish asked him. "Why isn't he in the infirmary?"

"He tried to kill Stacy and Miz. We don't let other loose cannons on the safer floors, we're not letting this one."

"He's not a loose cannon!" Trish barked at him. "He's Randy! Jesus, we let Reigns and Lee roam free at night, and they're serial killers, for crying out loud! This—It's Randy, Paul!"

"Right now? He's an unknown entity, and as far as anybody upstairs is aware, he's still dead. Until we can talk to him and figure things out…" He ran a hand over the smooth middle of his scalp and sighed. "He stays down here until we know what's going on," he told her, "and that's it."

"You're giving me your final word," Trish said.

"You damn well better believe it."

"Fine, then, wake him up." Trish turned back to the glass. "Wake him up so we can talk."

"Trish…"

She stalked past him, shoving at him as she moved by his side and around. She walked into the room, straight up to the bed, barely paying attention to the restraints that held down his arms. She traced the IV line from the bag to the clip. She pushed it closed, and cut off the sedatives.

Trish felt them moving around her, and in Stacy's case, heard her coming closer, the clicking of her heels against the tile. They came in, the family that had been there before Randy had disappeared, before they had found all of his blood staining a cement floor and walls. They were coming in, and this should have been the greatest moment of her life, because finally, Trish was getting back what she had given up hope on.

But, it wasn't, because she was afraid. Because he thought she had betrayed him, and if he'd fought Stacy and Mike, then he sure as hell would fight her.

And it wasn't, because she was pissed. Because for all she knew, there was another traitor in her house, and the second Randy could tell her who he talked to, when he talked to someone—Theoretically, it could have just been Barrett, but Trish had gotten ahold of Barrett pretty damn quick. More than likely, there was someone she had missed, and oh, was that traitorous son of a bitch going to pay. Oh yes, he or she would pay.

Randy's head started to move, rolling from side to side. His eyelids no longer fluttered, instead they jumped, showing glimpses of the whites of his eyes. Trish watched his throat move, his Adam's apple bob up and down. She watched his lips part, the tip of his tongue peek out between his lips.

And then his eyes opened, and Trish was now fully aware of his bonds, because he was straining against them. He saw her and there was so much fear and self-preservation in him that he fought like hell, and all Trish could do was back away from him as he shouted at her, called her a bitch and a traitor and told her to go ahead and kill him already, because this shit, keeping him locked down in this pit, that was fucking low, even for Shield, even for Trish.

Trish thought that when she first saw Randy, she would kiss him. She had this scenario in her head where she kissed him, and then she slapped him, just like an old romantic movie, and then she would kiss him again, because he was alive and she had him back.

He was yelling, though, and this was out of no romantic movie that she had ever seen or been told about. This was pure rage and hatred, and Trish, well, she was no shrinking violet. She stepped up to him and tightened the ball of her fist. She reared back and put everything into it as she brought her fist forward. Trish connected at the edge of his jaw. His head fell back against the bed and Trish leaned over him.

"I've been waiting for you for three fucking years, Orton, so don't you ever in your life say that I betrayed you. I killed for you, you son of a bitch, and when this is done, I'll do it again." She threw his dog tags down on his chest. "Fuck you."

Trish didn't bother to see if he was still conscious enough to hear anything that she said. She turned around and stalked out of the room, pushing past Mike and Paul and Stacy. She stalked into the hallway and back down to the elevator.

Stacy called behind her, "Trish!" But, she didn't stop, because she couldn't stop. There were things that needed to be done. There were questions that needed to be answered. There were traitors to find. But, at that moment, all Trish could do was get away from the one thing, the one person that, for the last three years, she thought could reappear and make everything right. He was, instead, the one person that had reappeared and made everything so wrong.


	16. Make Me Forget

**Author's Note: Just in case, it's not as obvious as it seems to me, the regular text parts are current. The italic sections are Trish's memories. **

Trish burst into the room, and Roman didn't acknowledge her. She could see the outline of his hand and more beneath the sheet, his hand moving up and down his hard shaft. His eyes were closed and his teeth bared. His free hand gripped the pillow beneath his head. He said he'd take care of it and that's exactly what he was doing.

Trish slammed the door and he still didn't look at her, but his hand slowed beneath the sheet. Trish stalked to the bed and snatched the sheet off of his body. His hand continued to move and she watched him, waiting for the sight to give her some kind of pleasure, to turn her on enough to jump on him and forget what she had just seen and said downstairs. To forget the chain that no longer hung around her neck.

She reached down and put her hand over his. His hand was so much bigger than hers, and her fingertips came nowhere near close to meeting. Roman's hand stopped moving. She looked up to his face and watched his chin dip down. He opened his eyes and her eyes moved away, to the side to watch his fingers unclench from the pillow.

"She said you wouldn't be back."

His voice was a low growl, his need and control just barely held in check. Trish looked to his eyes and they were expectant, waiting. She gulped and said, "She was wrong."

Trish released his hand and climbed on the bed. She hiked her skirt up around her thighs as she tossed one leg over him to straddle his stomach. She looked down at Roman and forced herself to see him, not the man downstairs. Roman had more hair, and… he… had never had facial hair outside of stubble, or a thick beard he once grew for undercover work. The tan was similar, but that was it. Roman had smoother lines in his face. Roman was prettier.

He…

Trish forced the thought away and dropped her body down. She kissed Roman hard, her lips pressing so hard against his that she could feel his teeth pushing against his lips. Roman growled and within seconds, Trish felt his hands move to her sides. She put her hands to his face. She pulled back from the kiss to breathe, then pushed down again.

"_I'm pretty sure I'm not dreaming."_

"_Shut up," Trish said before she kissed him._

_He put his hands in her hair and pulled her back, separating them. "I'm just sayin', I remember the words 'in your dreams' coming out of your mouth. Pretty sure I'm awake. There's no talking in my dreams."_

"_Then let this be a dream," she told him. She kissed him again, harder this time, more urgently. She was so good at keeping herself in control, at keeping her more lustful desires at bay. This wasn't the military and there were no rules against fraternization, but it was still hard to shake, the supposed right thing to do. _

_And this went beyond fraternization. This was an abuse of power that, in the outside world, would get her slapped with a sexual harassment suit. She was his boss, for all intents and purposes. If there were ranks in Shield, she would outrank him._

_But, there was an attraction there, one that she couldn't deny any longer. After that last mission… She should have sent someone else in, let someone else play Girl Friday to his dashing playboy, but there was no one else with the experience, no one else who could slide in and finesse the information they needed who also looked believable on his arm._

_And now, she was there, on top of him, his hands dropping from her face to her waist, and something told her that there would be no turning back from this. He was too playful, too fun, too—too everything for her to just let this be about the sex. Because it wasn't just the sex. It was him, his cocky attitude that both aggravated her and thrilled her at the same time. It was the way he joked with her and the way they worked together. It was him, and she wouldn't be able to let it just be sex._

_He squeezed her waist and Trish broke the kiss. She looked down at him as he said, "And if I don't want it to be a dream?"_

"_Randy…"_

_She didn't have any more words, so she took in a breath, then pushed down again._

Trish pushed off of him so hard that she almost fell backward. Roman's grip on her waist tightened, his fingers digging into her sides. Trish put her hands on his chest and looked down into his eyes. She shook her head. He was not- This was not—

It wasn't fucking fair! She had made it this long without memories flooding her. She had managed to fuck this guy all over his room, her room, and her office without seeing Randy's face, without hearing his voice or feeling his breath on her skin. And now…

Well, now he was there. He was right there, downstairs, and this—

This was all she had to make it not real, because if what was going on downstairs was real, then she had to face the reality of the situation. She had to face her own feelings. She had to face her own pain, to face the daggers that Randy's angry words had been in her heart, slicing the organ up in tiny slivers that his rage devoured before they could even be fully removed from her chest.

Roman rolled her over and dropped his body on top of hers. He was ready. Trish looked up into his eyes and saw a flash of something other than lust, something that said he realized that this wasn't normal, that something had happened, and that she was using him to push something away. But, that something was replaced very quickly because Roman did not give a damn. He was halfway to orgasm, maybe closer, and he wanted his release.

That was why this thing with him worked, because he didn't ask questions, he didn't try to get emotional. He hadn't asked about the dog tags since that first time, and he barely looked at them each time she took them off and put them on the bedside table. He didn't watch her when she put them back around her neck before redressing. Even now, when his eyes went down and noticed that the chain was gone, he didn't ask about it. He just kissed her.

Roman kissed her hard and he pressed his body down on her even harder. It had to hurt him a hell of a lot more than it hurt her, but she had learned quickly that Roman liked a little pain. He may have liked a lot more, but she was only willing to go so far.

He broke the kiss and like a flash, he was off of her, his hands pressing into the bed at her sides, his body raised up above her. Trish watched him as he moved down the bed. There was no sound as his feet touched the floor. His hands landed on her thighs. His fingers curled in until he bunched the material of her skirt. He shoved the skirt up her thighs and Trish lifted her hips so it could go up further. His arms brushed her legs, pushed her garter belt against her legs, sliding against her skin. He put a hand up to cover her, pressing in against her panties.

Roman sneered, frustration and almost anger touching his eyes. "You're not ready," he said.

Only then did Trish wonder just how far gone he had been, and it made her wonder if he just had that much control, or if he had that much humanity still inside of him. She also wondered whether or not he would have even cared if she'd come into the room just ten minutes later, even two or three minutes later.

Roman's hands were quick. There was a ripping sound, and then her panties were gone.

_Trish laughed, and there was a hint of giggle to it. "I can't believe you just did that!" She pushed herself up on the bed and slapped her legs closed. "Do you know how much those panties cost?"_

"_Too much for something I'm just going to rip from your body?" Randy smirked as he climbed on the bed. His hands went to her raised knees, but he didn't push, didn't try to pry her legs apart. His hands slid over her knees, up her thighs, then back to her knees. He went down her legs to the ankles, then kissed her knees. _

_Paul kept trying to tell her to be careful, to watch what she was doing, and she thought that this was why. Because she giggled when he did things that should have made her slap him in the face. Because his lips were becoming her favorite sensation in the world, and it didn't matter where they landed._

_Because she was starting to worry about where she sent him. She measured him against a different risk assessment scale. _

_Because she didn't want him to die on her, and that was bad for business._

_Randy stood up from the bed and Trish admired his body. He was fit, his skin taut and tan over the muscles that rippled beneath the surface. There was strength in his back, power in his arms and legs. He didn't really walk as much as slither, a graceful but dangerous slide taking him everywhere he wanted to go._

_Trish watched his arms raise, his hands go to his neck. She watched his fingers curl around the silver chain that hung loosely around his neck, then watched the chain go over his head. Before she could ask him what he was doing, he eased the chain over her head. It landed on her hair. Randy pulled her hair out and the chain fell to her neck. She looked down and lifted the dog tags in her hand, then looked up at him._

"_Randy…"_

"_God, I love you." He kissed her before she could respond. _

_And what would that have response been? She thought she had reciprocation on her lips, but she also had a question right behind it. Why now? Shouldn't he have been saving that for before he left? They still had over a week before he left out on his next mission, one that was supposed to take at least six months, if not more._

_Randy pulled back from her lips and Trish lifted a hand to his face. She brushed the back of her fingers against his cheek. "I love you, too," she told him. The moment felt too heavy, too real, too everything. Trish smirked and told him, "But you're still buying me a new pair of panties."_

Trish grabbed Roman by the hair and jerked his head up. He looked at her with his lips shining and surprise in his eyes. Trish tossed his head to the side and swung her leg over. She hopped off of the bed and nearly stumbled, her legs shaky making her unsteady in her heels. She yanked her skirt down, then moved her hands up to push her hair out of her face.

"I have to go." Trish shook her head and started to walk to the door. Roman hopped off the bed and was in front of her in a second. "Roman…"

"What's going on?"

"You don't ask questions," she said.

"I do now."

"_I knew I shouldn't have trusted you! You fucking bitch! Loved me—Yeah, right! You set me up! How long, huh?"_

_There should have been words coming out, but there was nothing but shock at his hateful words. _

"_You talk a big fucking game about wanting to be equals and not doing shit just because you're a woman, but that's what you did isn't it? You fucking whored yourself, Trish, you whored yourself to what—to kill me? You could have decommissioned me right here! You didn't have to do it like that! What the fuck did I do? Talk to me, you bitch! You fucking traitor! You betrayed me, you fucking traitorous bitch!"_

Trish pushed out with all the strength she had, her hands pushing against Roman's chest. She pushed hard enough for him to stumble back. "Don't start asking questions now," she said. Trish sidestepped him and moved around him.

"What is this," Roman asked, "a fucking test? See how worked up you can get me, then leave and see if I try to take anybody out?"

Trish turned around at the door and said, "It's not—" She shook her head. "There are things going on right now. I can't—I can't do this."

She didn't know how much he believed her. His eyes weren't lustful or needy, they were just angry, and Trish stopped to consider the other people in the facility. Usually, Roman's need to kill ended when he came, but would that be enough this time? Would he even finish himself off, or would he let the need build up in him, stay there until he could release it with his hands around someone's throat?

Trish's mind was all over the place, but there was still enough of the woman in charge in her that she knew she couldn't risk it. She couldn't go through with the rest of this sex session with Roman, but she could at least explain what was going on. She could still say something to let him know that this was truly not a test, that she wasn't setting him up for a decommission. She could let him know that she wasn't betraying him.

But, not right then, because her mind was going. She had let the boss roam free in her head, and that bitch had already started the wheels moving. She had already started formulating some idea of what to do, where to start. She reminded her that Randy Orton showing up wasn't just a crushing blow to the peace that she had finally started to reach after all those years. It was a sign that there was more housecleaning to be done.

Trish ran her hands down the sides of her skirt, then moved up to straighten her blouse. She swallowed hard, then said, "There's work to do."

Roman didn't react. He continued to stare at her, seething, his body reacting to the anger going through him.

Trish sighed. "Give me about half an hour to put myself together and to fix—" She waved her hand toward his erection. "—that. Then, get your team together and come to my office."

"What the hell is this about?"

She shook her head. "It's about trouble, and right now, I'm looking at one of the few people I can trust to end the trouble. Get Ambrose and Rollins, then meet me in my office. Half an hour."

Trish turned and jerked open the door. She walked out of the room and let the door close behind her. The hallway was empty, thankfully. There was no one to see the tears that started to fall the second she was away from Roman. And she had half an hour before she had to look anyone in the face. That was plenty of time. She needed new panties. And she needed to break down. Yeah, thirty minutes should have been enough for all of that, and then…

Well, then, she had work to do. And eventually, she had another traitor to kill.


	17. Your Mission, Choose to Accept It

AJ Lee was a lot of things. She was deadly. She was wild. She was halfway to utterly insane. But she was not, however, an idiot. She knew what was going on around her, and even when she didn't know the details, she knew when something was about to happen, and right now, she was positive that the boss lady was about to drop a bombshell.

AJ leaned against a steel beam in Trish's office, her arms folded over her stomach, her long hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She could have pulled a seat up to the desk, but she hated anyone being at her back. They were the only people in the room, but there was still room for someone to come in and stand behind her. She preferred to take a wall whenever possible. Trish's walls were made of glass, and even bulletproof glass was breakable. She found one of the few steel beams that were visible. If someone out there had a sniper's rifle pointed in her direction, she wasn't about to give them a target.

It wasn't actual schizophrenia, though when paranoia was mentioned, people tended to think that. AJ grew tired long ago of telling people that she didn't hear voices, that neither God nor the Devil made her do it, and that it wasn't paranoia if they really were out to get you. Funny thing, though, it was actually paranoia before she got recruited to Shield. After she joined, well, people were kind of after her, by proxy of people always being after Shield operatives, so it stopped being paranoia.

"How long are we gonna sit here in silence?" Dean groaned and slouched down in his seat. "AJ's getting twitchy."

A sure sign that Dean, in fact, was the one getting twitchy. She had noticed that about him, that he never flat out said that he was feeling something. Instead, he transferred his emotions to others. Usually, it was a little more obvious that he was using transference. This time, as Trish's eyes flicked over to AJ, he hadn't been so obvious.

Normally, standing for over ten minutes in silence, listening to the differing rates of breath, feeling the weight of the air pressing down on her, yes, AJ would have been getting twitchy. And when AJ got twitchy, someone usually ended up with a knife in some part of their body.

But, for some reason, AJ wasn't twitchy. She wasn't nervous. She felt a calm that she wasn't used to. Maybe it was because she was pretty sure that she was going to get some action out of this. Trish was too serious, too focused. When she talked regular business, there was still a bit of playfulness to her. Trish took a certain glee in handing out assignments, especially when the assignments called for an assassin, even more so when it was so important that it called for one of AJ's caliber.

The Trish sitting before them, however, was completely devoid of humor. She looked tired, her cheeks sagging, her eyes red. She was upset, and Trish didn't get upset over business. That meant that this was personal, and if she had Ambrose, Reigns, and Rollins in the room with AJ, then there was some serious shit going down, and AJ was about to be right in the middle of it. So no, that didn't make her twitchy. If anything, it excited her.

"Be nice, Dean," AJ said, her lip twitching up into a smirk. "Trish has somebody she needs us to call, don't you, Trish?"

Dean grunted. "Not that easy," he said. "Seth's here, and Seth's not an assassin."

"Oh trust me," AJ said. "There's someone that we need to kill."

Trish cleared her throat. "If the two of you are finished, yes, AJ, there's someone to kill. But, we have to find the person first."

Trish's eyes moved slowly across the room, falling on each of them for three to five seconds in turn before moving on to the next. She paused on Seth, then moved back around the room to AJ. The women met eyes, and AJ felt the cold hand of death reaching out to her. Everyone at Shield knew that Trish was dangerous. They all knew that trifling with her was a death sentence, but most of them figured she would just hand the job over to someone else. For the first time, AJ realized that she would easily, and possibly happily, do the deed herself. AJ was legitimately afraid of her.

"Randy Orton is alive."

Trish's words stopped AJ cold. She wasn't there yet when he went missing, but she had heard the stories. She knew that Randy Orton had disappeared on a mission, and when people were sent in to retrieve him, the only thing they found was a large puddle of his blood. She knew that Wade Barrett had gotten to look into the eyes of Lady Death, and that she had played with him before she put him out of his misery. And she knew that more important than any of that was that Trish had been in love with Randy.

They said that, until Trish had retired from field work and became full-time management, she and Orton were like Keibler and Mizanin. They were the number one team in Shield, and Orton was the number one operative. They said that, if Heyman ever decided to step down, Orton was the one that would have been promoted. Not to Heyman's spot, no, that was going to Trish, but Orton would move into Trish's spot, and they would be the golden couple.

Well, they also had said that Orton was dead, so who even fuckin' knew if anything they said was true.

One thing was true, though. Trish was in love with him. When she said his name, pain fell over her eyes like hastily drawn curtains blocking out the sun at its highest position in the sky. Her body tensed, and when she said he was alive, her voice hitched, raising about a quarter of an octave, if that much. Just enough, really, to show AJ, who was very good at reading body language that was a lot less obvious than hers, that there was truth in what they said about Trish Stratus and Randy Orton.

"Who the fuck is Randy Orton?"

Leave it to Dean to be inappropriate as hell. He had to have seen the same things about Trish that AJ had seen, but he didn't care. Sociopathic tendencies, indeed.

AJ looked at the other two men in the room. Trish's revelation meant very little to him. He obviously had no more of a clue of the identity of Randy Orton than Dean did. He sat up not because he was surprised, but because he was expectant. He wanted to know what this had to do with him.

Roman twitched at the news, but that was it. AJ was pretty sure that none of the people brought into Shield in the last year, at least, knew about Orton or what he had done. Trish and Paul never talked about him, and the only reason AJ knew was because she was nosy. People still talked about him with their friends, and at least once year, what she figured was a communal recognition of his death, people talked about missions they had accompanied him on. AJ was very good at eavesdropping. Roman, Dean, and Seth didn't really have friends, at least not those who would talk about him. If Seth was out of the loop, that meant that not even his time spent with Kaitlyn had gotten him information on Randy Orton.

But, Roman at least recognized the name, and she knew for a fact that he didn't have any friends outside of that room. People were too afraid of him to approach him. That meant that the ever-present they, the mysterious group that always knew everything, was right about something else. Trish Stratus and Roman Reigns had seen each other's holiest of holies, and not on accident.

Trish put her hands flat on her desk and slowly pushed herself to her feet. She clasped her hands together as she walked around the desk. Trish perched on the sharp edge of the desk and folded her arms over her stomach. "Randy Orton was the best operative we have ever seen."

Dean grunted, obviously about to say something not just inappropriate, but would get him seriously hurt. Trish was at the perfect angle to kick him in the face, and those heels of hers… Yeah, he'd be lucky if she didn't put her heel right in his eyes.

"Not now, Dean," AJ said before he could get himself hurt. "Just, shut up and listen to what she has to say."

Trish's head twisted to the side. She looked at AJ and said, "So you've heard."

AJ shrugged. "People like to talk." She shrugged again. "I like to snoop."

"Uh huh." She turned away from AJ and stared forward. She didn't look at any of the men sitting in front of her. She focused her eyes on the glass, staring out into the air beyond her office.

"Randy Orton was our best," Trish told them. "He was the number one operative. If you wanted to know how to do a job perfectly, you asked him. If you wanted to see how to survive and not find yourself decommissioned, you looked to him."

Trish pushed off of the desk and walked across the floor, her hip coming a hair's breath away from Dean as she moved past him. Roman and Seth turned their chairs to follow her. Dean continued to stare forward. AJ turned to the side, but made sure to keep herself well hidden by the large steel beam. Her slight frame came in handy when she needed cover.

Trish stared out the window as she continued. "Three years ago, Orton was on a mission, and he never came back. By the time we realized he was gone, it was too late. We searched for him, went to his last known location, and all we found was blood. We kept looking for him," she said, "I kept looking for him, until it was pretty damn obvious that he was dead. And in the middle of looking for him, I also found myself a traitor."

"So it's true," AJ said. "About Barrett."

Trish turned to her. "Oh, it's true. Turns out Wade Barrett thought he was higher on the totem pole than he was. He figured that without Orton around, he'd be top dog."

"But he wasn't. Miz is top dog, now."

Trish snorted in derision. "Miz was always going to be top dog after Orton. Barrett wasn't nearly as good as he thought he was. And by the time I finished his ass off, he was crying like a freaking baby." Trish's eyes touched each person in the room as she slowly said, "I do not tolerate traitors."

The room went silent as they digested the information. Apparently, it didn't take Dean nearly as long as anyone else to take it all in. Within seconds, he said, "So, I take it, turns out Orton's not dead."

Trish took in a deep calming breath. If Dean didn't keep his mouth shut, he was not going to make it out of that room alive. AJ thought he was the most thrilling man she had ever been around, the only one she hadn't at some point wanted to kill, but goddamn, he needed to learn when to keep his stupid mouth shut.

Trish let her breath out slowly, then said, "No, he's not dead." She turned back to the window and clasped her hands behind her back. "Keibler and Mizanin were just on a mission, on loan to Gamma, and they spotted him. It was…" Trish paused and her head tilted to the side. "Let's just say that Orton's return wasn't an easy one, and right now, is not a happy one."

She turned away from the window, her hands still clasped behind her back, and looked at her audience. "Apparently, at some point, Orton escaped his captors and he made a call in for an extraction. Instead of rescue, he got a hit squad."

"Barrett?" AJ asked.

Trish shook her head. "Couldn't be. He was already dead by the time Randy got loose."

"Did he tell him anything?"

"Of course not!" Trish's snap was fierce, like an angry dog at the end of a leash, and she was the one holding her own leash.

AJ put her hands up and took a step back. She only moved forward again when she realized that moving had put her in line of her imaginary sniper. "I didn't mean—I just—" She sighed. "You guys teach us how to torture, not how to withstand it, that's all."

"Orton didn't need training from us. He got that training from his unit." Trish ran her hands through her hair. She took in slow, deep breaths, visibly forcing herself to calm down. Trish dropped her hands to her sides. Her fingers tapped with agitation against her legs. "Trust me. Randy Orton would not have talked."

"Fine, he kept his lip shut and he got out before they realized they weren't breaking him. Whatever." Dean finally turned around to face Trish, but he didn't move his chair. He slid around until his legs were to the side and twisted his torso to see her. "The point of this long story is that there's another traitor here, and you don't know who it is."

"You talk too much, Ambrose," Trish said, "but yes, you are correct."

"And Orton can't tell us who he talked to?" Seth asked her.

"Orton's not saying anything right now." AJ was sure there was more to it than that, but Trish didn't elaborate. "I have Kaitlyn looking at the records now, looking through phone records and employment records to see who was working here at the time and who was on duty that night. For all we know, the traitor could be dead, presumed dead, or retired by now. Maybe they were transferred."

Roman's voice came out almost as a growl as he asked, "Why are we here?" He hadn't moved much, except to turn his chair around, while Trish was talking, and now that he was speaking, he still didn't move more than his lips.

"The four of you were not here when Orton says he called in. Besides Kaitlyn, Keibler, Mizanin and Paul, you are the only ones I trust."

Dean laughed. Jesus, that man was inappropriate. "Why the fuck would you trust us?"

"Because AJ is batshit crazy, but she's not an idiot." It was probably her crazing showing, but AJ actually beamed at that. It wasn't often that people around there gave her much credit. "Besides, I need people who are thorough and not connected to this at all. I vetted the four of you myself before you were brought here, and I trust my own judgment."

"So our mission, should we choose to accept it," Dean said, "is to find the traitor, and if he or she is still alive, kill them in a very painful and lasting way."

"Almost," Trish said. "You find the traitor, then you bring that son of a bitch to me. And after I have finished letting this person know just how much I loathe traitors, I'll give them back to you, and the four of you can bathe in traitor blood for all I care."

"We're hunting," Roman said. AJ heard excitement in Roman's voice, enough that she actually risked moving from her safe spot to see him. AJ ran quickly up the side of the room, stopping only when she found another beam that provided her protection as well as the ability to see Roman's face. When she looked at him, he was smiling. Yup, she was definitely looking at someone more dangerous than her.

"Yes, Roman," Trish said, "you're hunting. And you're very good at hunting, aren't you?"

His grin widened. "The best."

"Then do what you do best, all of you. Ambrose, I trained you on interrogation techniques. Use them. Rollins, I want you with Kaitlyn, searching those records. Hack into every computer in this place, every smart phone, every electronic device that comes up on a network in a fifty mile radius of here. Once you're through with Alpha, we'll move on to transfers to other stations. And AJ…" Trish turned to her and shook her head. "Do what you do best."

"Scare people?"

"Snoop," Trish said. "Because while Rollins and Reigns are looking outside, you and Ambrose are looking inside. There's an equal chance of the traitor still being here as there is of them being out." Trish folded her arms and fixed Dean with a glare. "So, I take it that you accept the mission."

Dean snorted. "It was accepted before you said anything. I'm just an asshole and I like to fuck around." Dean stood up and clapped his hands together. "Come on, boys and girl, let's get to work. We've got a fucking traitor to find."

Roman and Seth stood up, already whispering tactics to themselves. Dean joined in as they turned and headed to the door. AJ had ideas of her own, at least as to where to start snooping, but first, she had one more question to ask. She waited until the boys were out of the door before she walked up to Trish.

Trish looked down at her and asked, "Yes?"

"You said Orton's alive, that Stacy and Miz brought him back home."

"I did. What of it?"

"Well, I'm just wondering, I mean…" She sighed. "How do we know that he really made that call? Not like, he used it as an excuse when he was found, but like, maybe he thought he made a call, and he's held on to it."

"You're asking how do we know that he didn't hallucinate the phone call?" AJ nodded and Trish sighed. "Because," she said, "I've already seen him and the anger that is in that man…" She shook her head. "He made that call, AJ, and instead of telling me so we could go get him, somebody contacted an outside source and sent a hit squad after him."

There was more than determination in her voice. There was more faith than could be found in any church, more belief than even the highest acolyte could hold.

"Okay," AJ said with a nod of her head. "So, one more question, and then I'm off to snoop."

"Make it quick, and make it good, because my patience is wearing thin."

AJ gulped and repressed a fear the likes of which she'd never felt. "What was done with Wade Barrett's things after he was killed?"

"They're in storage," Trish said. "Why?"

AJ said, "Because now, I'm not thinking that Wade Barrett just wanted to be the top agent. I don't think that he just picked an enemy in Orton's part of the world at random. I think he was working with someone specifically, and it was probably the same group that the other traitor was working with."

"You think this goes beyond eliminating one great agent."

"I do," she said. "I think it goes deeper, and for whatever reason, probably because Barrett was the man in place to really exact it, they went to sleep when he was found. And then, when Orton escaped, they decided to put their plan on hold."

Trish reached back and rubbed her shoulders as she considered AJ's ideas. AJ was a lot smarter than she let people know. She put on a loopy face, a psychotic face, because people automatically assumed that crazy meant dumb. She lived to be underestimated. But now was not the time to have fun with how little people thought of her mental capabilities. Now was the time to use her brain and get down to business.

"Alright," Trish said, dropping her arms to her sides. She turned and moved toward the door. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

Trish said, "Deeper than the dungeon, AJ. It's time for you to start snooping, and I'm going to take you to Wade Barrett's personal affects. And when you get through with them? Burn them."


	18. Scanning For a Traitor

"Jesus, how many people does Shield employ?" Seth leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. He held the pressure for a moment before putting both hands to his face and rubbing his eyes.

His vision was starting to blur from so many hours staring at a computer screen. He never thought he would actually prefer hard copies to digital, but as his hands dropped to the arms of his chair and he waited for his double vision to become a single ocular signal again, he wished that everything hadn't been converted over already. According to Kaitlyn, if this had happened a year ago, there would have still been plenty of paper files for them to sort through. Now, there was only row after row of digital data, and Seth's eyes were burning.

Seth and Kaitlyn were searching specifically for the person who took the call. The others were trying to smoke out anyone else who might have been involved. Dean and Roman had the easy job. They only had to torture and intimidate scores of people who had the bad luck of having been Shield operatives when Orton disappeared. He and Kaitlyn were stuck trying to find the specific needle in the haystack, the asshole that helped Barrett put this shit into motion.

"As you can see," Kaitlyn said, "a ton." She smirked, then chuckled as she swiveled around to look at him. "Human Resources used to be an entire floor," she told him. "But now, we get to use that space for other stuff. The only stuff we have to keep paper copies of anymore is the stuff that the government requires for tax purposes."

"So, all that paperwork we filled out when we got here?"

"Scanned into the system and shredded. We're working on getting that streamlined, too."

"So, we're not really a completely digital company, yet." Seth nodded his head slowly. "It just feels that way because everybody we're investigating is in the system."

"Yup." Kaitlyn swiveled her chair back to her computer terminal. He watched her fingers fly across the keyboard. Her computer knowledge impressed him, and the more they worked together, the more Seth found himself watching her work. He admired the speed of her fingers and the flex of her muscles when she laced her fingers together and thrust her hands in the air above her head to stretch. And yeah, he could dig her two-toned hair, obviously.

He'd been thinking about asking her out before all of this happened. In fact, the question had been on his lips when Roman showed up and told him that Trish wanted to see her. A second later, Keibler had showed up and pulled Kaitlyn away. From then, everything had been a mass of information, and it wasn't until that moment, when he watched her fingers play Speedy Gonzalez across the keys that he was even reminded that he was going to say something.

It was just going to have to wait, because this was more important. Somebody out there was trying to take them down. They may not have been on an active mission at the moment, but that was still the point. Seth had his issues with Shield, for sure. He still wasn't one hundred percent gung-ho for the killing aspect, but he liked the security of the job, and knowing that people had his back. He finally had friends that he could trust. Though, it was kind of messed up that one of those friends was a bona fide serial killer, but hey, at least he knew Roman wasn't going to put a knife in his back or sell him up the river like Jimmy and Aries had.

Seth went back to his monitor, scanning another personnel file. "So," he said, "did you know Orton?"

"Yeah," she said, turning to the side to write something down on a small yellow pad of paper. "He was the top dog, ace operative. We all figured if Heyman ever stepped down, he'd be next to move up. Like, Trish would take Heyman's spot, and Randy would take hers."

"So, you would know if something was going on between him and Trish, huh?"

Kaitlyn went still, her eyes focused on the paper, even though her hand had stopped moving. Seth had probably stepped a little too far, but there was no denying that there was more to Trish Stratus and Randy Orton than just employer and employee. Hell, it was obvious there was more there than just friends.

Kaitlyn's voice was soft as she said, "I'm pretty sure they would have ended up married, like Stacy and Mike." She rose her head slowly to look at Seth. "It's hard meeting somebody, with our job, ya know? Operatives tend to hook up with each other, but very few of them actually stay together the way Stacy and Mike did."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "The job is hard, and well, let's face it, people die. You start to worry about somebody. You send someone out on a mission, and you can get distracted, and that's not good for business. Heyman doesn't care if we fraternize, because he knows that we will, but he gets a little twitchy when things start to get serious."

"Kait—" He started to say something, started to ask her if she'd ever gotten serious with anyone, but it died on his tongue. He shook his head and put his attention back on the current file. "Nevermind."

"I know what you were going to do, Seth," she said, "before Roman came in to get you. And I just wanted to say that I would have said yes."

Seth's head jerked to the side, his eyes landing on her. "What?"

Kaitlyn turned away from him, moving back to her computer screen. "I just… I've kind of been waiting for you to ask me out, and I mean, that is what you were going to do, right? You were going to ask me out on as close as you can get to a date around here?"

"Well, uh… yeah."

"So, I'm just telling you that I would have said yes. Just in case you decide to ask again when this is all over."

A slow smile crept across Seth's lips. Kaitlyn didn't look at him again, continued to type, but with her hair pulled back, she could see the red flush creeping up the side of her neck. She was a lot like him, not just in a shared fondness of combat boots and two-toned hair. Kaitlyn didn't seem like she fit in at Shield, not the way that Dean and Roman did. She seemed innocent, and though she had obviously done something to get on Shield's radar, Seth thought that it couldn't have been any worse than what he had done. She was a computer hacker, after all.

Not that he'd actually asked her. She knew what he'd done because she had access to his personnel file, but Seth didn't want to snoop. If she wanted to open up to him one day about that, then great, he'd listen. But, until she spun him a tale of intrigue and murder, Seth was going to keep on believing that she was just too good with a computer for her own good, same as him.

"I think I found something." Seth looked over to Kaitlyn as she said, "I'm sending something to your terminal."

"Okay." He waited, and it only took a few seconds. The face that popped up on his screen was unfamiliar to him, someone he had not met, yet. "Is she still working here? I haven't seen her, and the name doesn't sound familiar."

Kaitlyn shook her head. "No, we transferred Summer Rae out about six months before you got here." Kaitlyn pushed her hair back out of her face. "But, I remember she was working with us in communications about the time that Randy was taken."

Seth considered that. They were running a program on another computer, cross-referencing the HR files and security phone logs to find the names of the people who had logged in on the comms when Orton was missing. When the program finished running, they could check to see if Summer Rae's name was on that list.

"Where is she now?" Seth asked.

Kaitlyn looked forward and peered at the screen, her eyes squinting. "Says… Looks like we sent her to Delta."

"Any specific reason?"

"Nope. They just needed an experienced comm person, and she was the most experienced that we could spare at the time."

"Okay," Seth said, "so she's another one that was working comm at the time. Do we know if she was actually on duty that night?"

"That's just it. Summer Rae was like me. Well, not like me. I mean, she was kind of a bitch, but—" She shook her head. "Whatever. There was a group of us that was always on call if someone at the top was on a mission, and she was one of them. That's not even what caught my eye. Take a look at who recruited and trained her."

Seth peered at the screen, and froze. "Wade Barrett."

"Yup. And look at when she was brought in."

Seth leaned in closer. "Exactly three months, to the day, before Orton was assigned that mission."

"Yeah."

Seth turned to look at her. "You think she's the one that took the call?" Seth asked her. "Should we tell Dean and Roman to hold up on interrogations until we get her here?"

Kaitlyn thought about it for a moment then shook her head. "She might be the one we're looking for, but no, we shouldn't stop them. This whole thing could be a lot bigger than just Summer Rae and Wade Barrett, if Summer is even involved. We'll keep them doing what they're doing."

Seth winced at the idea of what they were doing. He was getting better about the killing, but the torture- He didn't like to think about it. He was almost positive that he would never get used to that part. So, he chose to ignore it whenever possible. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times he could ignore it. He just had to face that it was happening, and be glad that he didn't have to physically be a part of it.

"And what are we going to do?" Seth asked her.

"We," she said, "are going to keep looking for more people, just in case it's not Summer." Kaitlyn reached across the desk and picked up the phone. "And I'm going to call Trish and let her know that we found somebody. She can have Summer Rae here in about a day, two at the most. And then—"

Kaitlyn paused, but she didn't have to finish her sentence. Seth already knew what came next. "And then," he said, "we give her to Dean."


	19. Play Time

Dean dropped down in the chair across from the man, his legs and arms dangling, his head dropping back. The fear was the fun part in this, the terror in their eyes when they walked into the room and saw him standing there. Dean hadn't been there long, but he'd been around long enough to garner a reputation. Everyone at Shield knew that the only thing worse than being locked in a room with Dean Ambrose was to be named as a target for Roman Reigns. And the only thing better than the look on their faces when they saw Dean was when they took a seat and realized a serial killer was staring at them with hungry eyes from the dark corner beside the door.

After the fear, everything else was routine. Dare he say, the rest of it was boring. Not a person who walked into the room made Dean believe that they were lying. Couldn't at least one of them be a lying sack of shit? He had a tray of wonderful toys waiting for him to play with, and he'd yet to have cause to use them. Maybe this one would be different.

Dean dropped his head forward, until his chin knocked against his chest. He was dressed for a mission, his black vest strapped tightly across his chest. There were a few more little surprises for liars hidden in the pockets. They almost burned through the material, they wanted to be used so badly.

Dean looked down at the folder in front of him. He didn't know half of these motherfuckers from Adam, and the one sitting across from him didn't even have a familiar face. "Heath Slater." Dean flipped through the papers, pretending to read them.

He already knew everything he needed to know about Slater. He was recruited the same time as Barrett. And he was in the building the week they suspected Orton had made his phone call. He wished Kaitlyn and Seth would hurry up with that last. As much fun as he was having, Dean wanted to put the hurt on somebody, and with that list, he'd get to do that a lot sooner than wading through the bullshit.

Dean smirked. "Looks like you've got some explaining to do, son."

Slater arched an eyebrow. "Excuse me?" His Southern accent was thick, and his lisp was even thicker. Dean was pretty sure that guy didn't do undercover work, unless it was in the Deep South. There was no way he'd go undetected anywhere else.

Dean placed his hands flat on the table and slowly pushed himself to his feet. Hunched over, he leaned across the table to Slater. "Wade Barrett," Dean said.

"What the hell do I have to do with Wade Barrett?"

"I don't know, but your twitch tells me that you had something to do with him."

"What twitch?"

Dean grinned. "When I said his name, the left side of your mouth twitched. And when you said his name, your voice went up half an octave and I saw rapid blinks. That tells me that you, my friend, are the first person to come into this room and lie to me."

"Now, wait a damn minute."

"No, you wait." Dean stood up straight and put his hands to his vest. He gripped two of the pockets, one in each hand, and tugged hard once. "Lying to me is not something you wanna do, Slater."

"I'm not lying to you," Slater told him. "I didn't have anything to do with Barrett."

Dean dropped his hands to his sides and walked away from the table. His hands touched the cool metal of the rolling cart that hid against the side wall, covered in shadows. As the tray came toward the table, the light above bounced off of it. All of the pretty, shiny, sharp things on the surface glittered like they were covered in pixie dust.

"Do you know what I do with these, Slater?"

Only Slater's eyes showed that he was afraid. He may have been a lying sack of shit, but he had taken his lessons at Shield well. The eyes were the hardest to get under control. A shitty childhood had trained Dean to control his eyes at an early age. He turned his head to look behind him. Roman stood there, his eyes perfectly blank. He was better at the eyes than Slater, too. But, then again, Roman was a sociopath. He didn't have anything to show.

But Slater's eyes showed the fear. And the fear in his eyes caused Dean to grin and show something of his own. He let Slater see just how much he was going to enjoy this.

"These are solely for me to play with." He lifted a long slender tool about four inches long with a hook on the end. Dean rose it to the light and admired its sheen. "Do you know what this is, Slater?"

"No."

Dean laughed. "I don't really know the actual name of it, either, but I know what it does." Dean lowered the tool to the tray and picked up a scalpel. "But we know what this is, don't we?"

"Ambrose—"

"Quiet," Dean barked. He moved in close to Slater and pressed the flat side of the scalpel against his cheek. "Now, let me tell you what's going to happen." He pressed a little harder, but still didn't cut. "I don't give a fuck what you have to say right now, Slater. Because you're lying to me right now, and you'll lie to me again. You'll say anything you think I want to hear to get me to stop. So, for right now, I'm going to take all of these pretty, shiny, metal things, and I'm just going to make you hurt."

From his spot on the wall, Roman chuckled. "It's not about getting to the truth, Slater. It's just about punishment."

Dean laughed. "That's right, Slater, my man. This is just about punishment."

"C-Come on, man. I don't know anything about Barrett."

"See? Right there, that's why you're getting punished. Because you're a fucking liar, Slater. I can see it in your eyes, and I can hear it in your trembling voice, and I can smell it in the piss that's already starting to run down your leg."

Slater's eyes widened as he looked down. Surprise shown on his face. How could he not have known that he'd pissed himself. Bright red flushed his neck and cheeks. He looked away, and Dean jerked his face back around to look at him.

"M-Man, you… You need to chill. No reason to do that."

"Oh, I've got plenty of reason to do everything I'm gonna do to you."

Dean looked over his shoulder toward Roman. He jerked his head and the big man began to move forward. He came out of the shadows like something from a horror movie. His face was dead, emotionless. His arms swung at his sides as he strode across the floor, his eyes on Slater. He moved around Dean, around the tray of play toys, and stood behind Slater. He grabbed his arms and Slater's eyes went wide.

Slater began to thrash in the chair. "I'll tell you everything! Don't do this, man! Come on!" He fought against Roman's hold, but there was no way he could counter the strength in that man's arms. He was caught, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Sure, Dean could let him go. He could just sit back and let him pour the entire story out. But, what fun would that be? Stratus and Heyman had promised him a chance to play, and so far, he'd been denied that chance. Sure, he got to kill, but those were quick. He couldn't take his time and enjoy the screams, enjoy the smell of the blood that poured over his hands. This time, though, he was going to enjoy it. Besides, he knew how torture worked. Slater would tell him where to find the Holy Grail and the lost city of Atlantis if he thought it would get him out of Dean's torture chair.

Dean began with slow slice of the scalpel, making cuts only a few centimeters long on the left side of his face. "You lied to me, Slater," he said as he let the scalpel bite into the man's skin. Slater screamed and Dean laughed at him. "You lied to me, and for that, well, you're just gonna have to suffer."

"Come on, man! Stop! Don't- You don't have to do this!"

"No," Dean said, "I don't." He moved to his right cheek. "You see, I want to do this. Everything you've all said about me? You're right. I do like to hurt people. Why the fuck you think I signed up for this gig? They're gonna pay me to bring the pain, and that's what I'm doing to you, right now."

Slater screamed as Dean sliced, and Dean's only response was to laugh. He had done a lot of research over the years, trying to understand why he enjoyed that sound so much. All he could come up with was that he was a sick individual. Causing pain in others made him feel good, made him feel alive. The only thing that came even close to that was sex, a good hard fuck, and well… That involved screams, too, didn't it? Though, they were screams of a different nature.

He didn't get off on the bloody screams, though. There was no sexual component to the hurting of others. Instead, it was the excitement of getting a good present, or the thrill of doing something. It was what he thought normal people felt when they hit the lottery, or what a bodybuilder felt when he hit the gym. There was a rush of endorphins, an elation that spread through him. After sex, he was tired and went to sleep. After hurting someone, he was jazzed and ready to run for days.

Dean knew he wasn't a sociopath, though. Psychotic, quite possibly, but he did have emotions. He may have only been able to count the times on one hand, but he had experienced fear in his life. He'd felt sadness and once, he'd been able to empathize with someone. No, he wasn't a sociopath, but he definitely wasn't all there, either.

Dean wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving behind a sticky red smear. He looked up from his work to the big man holding Slater down. Finally, there was life in his eyes. Reigns looked excited, and the kind of excitement in his eyes made Dean glad that they were on the same team. Reigns looked like he wanted to fuck something or kill it, maybe even both. Dean hoped that the guy preferred to do it in that order and not the other way around.

"Having fun?" Dean asked him with a smirk.

Reigns grunted. "Cut him again."

Dean grinned and chuckled. "With pleasure."

Dean bypassed the red mask that was now Slater's face. He used the scalpel to cut down the center of Slater's black t-shirt, watching the material fall away from his pale skin. Dean set the scalpel back onto the tray and picked up the thing with the hook. He held it up to the light and twisted it between his fingers. "Kinda looks like a knitting needle, doesn't it?" He looked down at Slater. "But, knitting needles don't feel like this."

Dean stabbed the sharp, pointy edge of the hook into Slater's chest. The man screamed and thrashed. Roman's grip on his arms tightened and he pushed down, forcing him to stay in the chair. Dean threaded the hook through his skin, then pulled. The skin broke with a pop, and Slater screamed at octaves that Dean didn't even know a full grown man could reach.

Dean stood back and watched the blood drip. A slow, hideous grin spread across his face. "And that was just the warm-up." He moved in quick, putting his face right up into Slater's space. Their noses tapped. Dean's grin widened as he said, "Now, we have the real fun."

And Slater screamed.


	20. Killed For You

They had unfastened the restraints. That was a plus. Of course, Randy was well aware that even if they weren't keeping him sedated most of the time, he still wouldn't have made it that far. In the three years he'd been gone, they would have already changed the codes on the elevator, and the lift wouldn't open without the correct passcode. The wrong passcode entered three times would trigger an alarm and enough knockout gas to keep him unconscious for the next six hours, at minimum. So yeah, there was no point in keeping him restrained, because he couldn't go anywhere, anyway.

Randy squeezed his hand around the cool metal dog tags, edged in rubber. They were the first thing he reached for when he first woke up with his arms free, and he hadn't let them go since then. He didn't look at him, though. Looking at them brought too many memories, and those flashes of the past only served to confuse him more. Because Randy fully believed that Trish had tried to have him killed, that she had never really loved him, but the memories were just- They were too strong, and made him question his own mind.

There was just too much sense to it for there to be any other explanation. He remembered the night before he left for that mission, recalled it as easily as he recalled the fight with Miz before Stacy drugged him. Trish always told him that she hated to send him out there, wished that someone else would step up and be good enough to take his top operative spot, so he could take an administrative job, so he could have an office like her and stay safe within the confines of the compound.

But that night, she didn't say any of that. They made love, and Randy remembered how soft her skin had been. He had taken care to touch every inch of her, to kiss every place that his lips could touch. He always did that just before he left, in case the mission turned out to be longer than expected and he could remember her during the long nights. They told each other they loved each other that night. His dog tags had looked like the finest jewelry around her neck.

She never told him not to go, though. She didn't even joke about some bedroom gymnastics causing him to break his arm and giving the job over to someone else. She didn't tell him that she wished he wasn't so good. She didn't tell him anything other than that she loved him, and when he walked out the door the next morning, his bag over his shoulder, she just looked up at him with the sheet clutched to her chest, her hair a frizzy mess, and told him, again, that she loved him.

And that was the problem, though, wasn't it? The fact that he kept remembering what she did say, along with what she didn't say. Because no, she didn't bemoan her timestamp on the file that approved this mission for him, but she kept saying she loved him. Randy knew how much Trish hated to say those words, hated the weakness that she thought being in love caused in her, but that night- She said it like she was never going to see him again, and he needed to know, that she needed him to know.

Which sent him back to her setting him up. Because she did say it like she was never going to see him again, and that's because the bitch fucking knew he was never coming back from the desert hell to which she was sending him. He had worked with Trish. They had put in their fair share of long term missions, and he knew she was a damn good actress. He just never thought she was **that** good. He should have known better than to underestimate her.

But, still, that nagging voice told him that he was bitter and he was angry, and he was confused, and he was being a fucking idiot. That voice told him that Trish was in love with him. Why else would she wear those tags for the last three years?

Of course, who was to say that wasn't just more bullshit. That it was some kind of show she put on for everybody. Granted, that was assuming that Heyman wasn't in on it, too. Not like he'd put it past that fucking walrus. Son of a bitch would sell out his own mother if it made him a quick buck and probably had.

And that voice told him, again, that he was being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. If they wanted him dead, Randy wouldn't have made it back to Alpha's base. Stacy and Miz would have taken him out and buried his ass out in the desert. Hell, Stacy would have put a stiletto in his neck instead of a needle.

"So, why the fuck am I still alive if they wanted me dead so badly?"

"Because we didn't want you dead."

Randy's head popped up at the soft voice, out of instinct more than an actual desire to see her. He didn't want to look at her, because seeing her face made him even more confused. He had spent the last three years attaching every dark, dangerous, desolate thought he could manage to her face. He had imagined those eyes wide while he drove a knife into her heart, twisting it so she could feel his heartbreak before she died.

But, looking at her now, he only saw the woman that he had loved all of those years ago. Her hair was darker, what he knew from personal, private experience, was her natural color. It was also a new dye job, because when she slapped the shit out of him, she'd still been a blonde. Randy wasn't sure how long he'd been there, whether it was a few days or a week, but he knew it wasn't long enough for the new dye job to have been her hair growing back out. That was a retaliation dye, right there.

Her face wasn't exactly the same, either. She had a few more lines at the corner of her eyes and at her mouth. But, it was still her. It was still the woman he'd fought side by side with when their cover was blown unexpectedly in Budapest. It was the woman whose body he held at night while they slept, the soft skin that warmed him when the air conditioning was up too high and made him sweat when there was no A/C to be had and they were roasting.

She was the woman he had planned to ask to marry him when he came back from that last mission.

Randy dropped his head back to his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "You don't wanna come in here, Trish."

"If Paul thought you would hurt me, he would have deactivated my passcode to get down here," she said.

"He probably thought that you wouldn't bother."

"Doubtful."

Her voice moved closer to him with each word, but still, Randy kept looking up at the ceiling. He didn't need to look at her. It was bad enough he could smell her. She only wore perfume when she wasn't planning to leave the compound. She never wanted to be remembered by anything when she was out, not even her perfume. But, in these walls, she wore perfume, and though Randy couldn't remember the name of it, he remembered the scent and knew it was the same one she'd worn three years ago.

"Wade Barrett," she said, "Heath Slater, and Summer Rae. That's who we know of so far." She spoke with the practiced, trained voice that Randy knew well. It was the one she used when she was trying to hold something back. He didn't know what it was this time, but the last time he'd heard that tone, she'd been restraining herself from decommissioning someone without Paul's approval first.

Randy felt her shadow hovering beside the bed, felt the air shift as she brought her hand to hover over his arm. He squeezed his eyes shut. Randy Orton wasn't a praying man, but right then, he prayed whatever deity cared to listen, begging them not to let her touch him. _Please, if I'm meant to be alive right now, don't let her touch me._

Trish's hand moved away and Randy let out a heavy breath. Her voice was not contained at all as she said, "Don't look so fucking relieved." Her voice was filled with pain and bitterness. The air shifted again as she whirled around. He didn't need to look at her to know what the air felt like when she spun on her heel, and he heard her heels clicking away from the bed.

"The fuck do you want me to say, Trish?"

"I want you to say that you've come to your senses, Randy. That we pumped you full of enough drugs to make you realize that you're being a fucking idiot. I want Stacy to beat sense into you, or Mike, or Paul, or anybody! Can you tell me that, Randy? Can you tell me that you realize you were wrong?"

"All I realize is that I'm still alive, so you must still want something from me."

"We want you, you idiot!" Randy heard her hard footfalls as she crossed back to the bed. His eyes popped open, not because he wanted to see her, but because he wanted to be able to see her shoulders, in case she tried to punch him again. She always telegraphed her punches with her shoulders.

Her eyes were wide and, unexpectedly, brimming with tears that she tried to hold in. Her nostrils flared. Her pink lips trembled. He expected to see her ready to swing. He didn't expect to see her about to cry.

"Do you know how long I've waited for you? Jesus, Randy, I didn't wait for a couple of weeks and move on. I didn't move on at all!"

He opened his mouth to speak, to say there was no way in hell she'd been celibate for three years, but Trish cut him off before he could even get words out of his throat. His lips were just parting when she said, "I don't mean that, you idiot. You know me. I have urges."

He snorted a laugh. That was unexpected, too. Yeah, he knew her and her urges well. That was how they started. She needed sex. He needed sex. It was a good time. It was fun and energy and rolling naked bodies, until it became about love. He wished it had stayed just a roll in the hay.

"My heart didn't move on," she told him. "I only slept with people who had no chance in hell of ever feeling anything for me because they can't feel anything for anyone." She barked an angry, bitter laugh. "I fuck serial killers because I know they can't love me. Because you were the only one I wanted to love me."

"Trish—"

She stepped back from the bed, scrubbing her face with the palms of her hands. Trish let her arms drop to her sides. "We didn't try to kill you, Randy. I risked the lives of dozens of agents trying to find you. I would have risked my own if Paul didn't put me on fucking watch to make sure that I didn't go out there for you myself."

She turned away from him and he wished he had words, wished that he could understand his own thoughts enough to say anything. Because he hated her for the last three years. From the moment that hit squad appeared, he had hated her, not just for wanting him dead, but for destroying his heart in the process. But, damn it, deep down, he still loved her, and that part of him was fighting to get to the top, fighting to beat down the darkness within him.

Trish turned around slowly. Her voice was shaky as she said, "Wade Barrett set you up, and I had fun destroying that little piece of shit before I finally killed him. So far, we've found at least two more people that were involved. Heath Slater's blood was hard to get out from under my fingernails."

Randy shuddered. Trish had always been pretty brutal, but he was wondering if she'd been spending a little too much time fucking serial killers.

"Summer Rae had to be brought in and I'll deal with her when she gets here, after I let Ambrose and Reigns have some fun. If there are anymore, the people I have looking into it will find them, and then I will kill them. I will punish them. I will let AJ Lee do every psychotic thing she wants to do to them. I will let the serial killer play, and I will let that crazy fuck Ambrose play all he wants. And when they're almost dead, I will bring them back just so I can have them look in my eyes before I kill them."

"You always decommission the traitors, Trish," he said with a groan. "That's not new."

"I'm not decommissioning traitors, Randy," she told him. "I am torturing and murdering the people that took you away from me, and you know what? I'm fucking enjoying it."

He saw the truth in her eyes, and the truth was the same brutal pain he had felt when he realized that the woman he loved had betrayed him. Randy saw heartbreak in her eyes, and God help him, the love that was clawing its way to the top wanted to grab her by the arms and kiss her hard enough to bruise her lips. But, while the love was moving up, the anger and bitterness was fighting back and it wasn't ready to lose yet.

So all he could do was watch her turn away from him and walk out the door.


	21. Caught

The hard sheet of the table top was cold against her cheek. Her eyelashes fluttered as she attempted to push her eyes open. From beneath the half drawn shades of her eyelids, she saw a small puddle of drying drool. Well, wasn't that embarrassing? About as embarrassing as getting caught with her pants down, so to speak, walking into her own apartment. She still wasn't too sure how a guy the size of DiBiase managed to move so quietly. She didn't know he was there until his arm was around her waist, cinching her body tightly, pressing it against his own. A needle pricked her neck, and she had enough time before she went out to turn in his arms and actually see the face of her attacker. Thoughts of the stalking skills of Ted DiBiase Jr. were the last things to go through her mind.

Awake now, she didn't need to look around the room to know where she was, at least, not in general. She had seen enough interrogation rooms to know that was where she was. Her arms were strapped to the arms of the chair with zip ties. She pulled at them anyway, even though she knew that it would do her no good. She pushed herself up and stared at the three men in front of her. Now, she knew where she was.

Shit.

"Seth Rollins."

"Dean Ambrose."

"Roman Reigns."

She stared at the three of them as they formed a triangle across from her. Rollins was seated, his fingers tapping against a manila file folder. To the side of his right hand was a tablet. Ambrose stood at his left, on the dark side of his hair. Reigns was on his right, on the bleached blond side.

"And you are Summer Rae," Ambrose said. She didn't like the grin on his face when he said her name. "You look like a liar, Summer Rae. I'm gonna have fun with you."

Summer swallowed hard and shook her head. "What's going on?"

Rollins opened the folder and flipped it around, turning it toward her. He pushed it into her face as he said, "This tells us that you took a phone call that you didn't log, Summer."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh yeah, she's a liar alright." That was from Reigns. He wasn't the tallest, but in physical presence, he was the largest. He was a scary guy, that was for sure, and the laughter in his voice was frightening.

"And thanks to your rules," Ambrose said, "she's all mine."

Summer tried to move her chair back. She knew she couldn't get her arms free, but she thought she might at least be able to scoot back from the table. She felt the urge to get as far away from those freaks as humanly possible. Unfortunately, trying to move told her that her ankles were also zip tied to the chair. She was trapped, and she had no choice but to stay put.

Rollins leaned forward, standing up enough to stretch across the table and get right up in her face. His voice was low as he asked, "Did they tell you that he was dead, Summer? Did your hit squad say that the job was finished?"

Her voice shook, her bottom jaw trembled. "I don't—I don't know what you're talking about."

But she did. Goddammit, she knew she shouldn't have gotten involved with that mess. But, she was cocky and she wanted to move up faster than they were moving her. They told her that if she did this, she could have Kaitlyn's top spot when the takeover was complete. They told her that she'd get Trish's spot, eventually, and Summer had believed them. Even after Trish got her hands on Barrett and he disappeared down into the dungeon, she had still believed them, still thought that they knew what they were talking about.

But they had come through for her, in a way. She did have Kaitlyn's spot, just not at Alpha. She was now the head of IT at Delta. And three years down the line, she figured that he was dead. That's what they told her, that they wouldn't have to worry about Orton. But, if she was in an Alpha interrogation room, with papers being shoved in her face, Summer Rae knew that he must have been alive.

Shit.

"Less than a week ago, Randy Orton was found in Mumbai, alive and well." Rollins sat down again. He left the folder in front of her. "Imagine the surprise when he thought that the people who found him were there to kill him. Picture the surprise when he got back here, swearing that Paul and Trish sent a hit squad after him when he called in for a rescue."

"I—I don't know what any of this has to do with me."

"I think she likes pain," Ambrose said with a crooked grin. He had deep dimples that should have been adorable, but only managed to add to his creepiness. "That's the only reason I got for why she keeps lying to us."

"I'm not lying to you! I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Except you do, Summer." Rollins's voice, tense and a little shaky, turned her head to him. As afraid as she was, Summer was still able to tell that Seth Rollins was not the torture man. He was trained in interrogation, sure. Everybody was trained in run of the mill, cop show level interrogation. But, she figured Shield would have left the hardcore stuff up to his partners, the crocodiles at his back with their sharp pearly whites, ready to get a taste of human flesh. Every time Reigns or Ambrose spoke, Rollins got a twitch at the corner of his eye, like he wasn't comfortable with what they were saying. Maybe she could use that to her advantage.

Summer leaned into the table. She didn't look at the paper in front of her. Instead, she put her eyes on Rollins. "Seth, right? I know you think you guys have something on me, but honestly, I'm not lying to you." She put honey in her voice and desperation in her eyes. She even tugged her ankle so tight that the zip tie holding it to the chair bit into her skin, forcing tears into her eyes. "You don't want to let them hurt me, do you? I don't know anything."

Whatever they had on her had to be airtight, because he didn't even waiver. He knew that she was guilty as sin, and no amount of tears was helping her. She knew that if there was even a doubt in his mind of her guilt that he would say something. He had that look about him, and even though Summer had been mainly an IT person, she was also one of the computer geeks that got sent out into the field, and she was very good at reading people. Seth Rollins was a man that would not let a woman get hurt for no reason. He was, however, a man that would let them do whatever the hell they wanted to do to a traitor.

"We figured out the day and time that Orton called in for the rescue," Rollins told her. "Between the information Heyman was able to get out of him and a little thinking of our own, we figured out when the call was made. And from there, it didn't take us very long to get your name, and figure out that you were on call that night."

"So what? There's always somebody on call when a top operative is out on a mission."

"Well, there's also this." Seth picked up the tablet and turned it on. His finger flew across the screen for a few seconds before he turned it to her. Summer watched a grainy security video. It was hard to see through the static, but it was still pretty obvious that it was a tall blonde, about Summer's build, coming out of the security room. Apparently, Rollins was better at recovering doctored and erased footage than she gave him credit for.

"How do you know that's me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, let me get you the rest of the evidence." Rollins turned the tablet back to himself and moved again. This time, she knew what it was before he even turned it around. The volume was all the way up, and the sound of screaming echoed throughout the room. Someone had talked.

Rollins turned the tablet back to her and she watched as the screaming stopped. She watched Heath Slater as Dean Ambrose cradled his head against his chest. His face was a mask of blood, strips of flesh missing, but there was no missing his hair. Somehow, Slater's ginger head had managed to stay mostly free of blood, enough that Summer could identify him. Enough that she knew who had ratted her out before the words left his mouth.

"_Like heaven, isn't it?" Ambrose held an empty hypodermic needle up so Slater could see it. "I can give you more, so much more, and it'll all be over."_

"_Please, man… P-P-Please…"_

"_I can send you straight to heaven, Slater. Or I can give you over to Roman."_

"_G-God, n-n-no…"_

"_All you've gotta do is tell me the truth, Slater. See, I can give you a little heaven, and you can give me a name. It'll take my boy, Seth, half an hour tops to verify that name for me. And while you're waiting, you'll feel like you're on top of the world. I'll give you enough of this shit for you to be able to feel the imaginary tits in your hands while you squeeze 'em."_

"_Please…"_

"_But, if it comes back that you lied, I'm going to give you to Roman, again."_

"_I w-won't. I swear, man. I w-won't lie to you."_

"_Then give me a name, Slater."_

"_S-Summer Rae."_

Torture, pain and fear had amped his lisp up to ridiculous proportions, but there was no mistaking what he said. He had ratted her out. Between Slater giving her up, the paper trail found my Rollins, and that video footage—

Summer Rae slumped in her chair. She dropped her head down until her forehead bumped against the table. She let out a heavy breath and said, "I'm fucked, aren't I?"

"Oh sister…" Ambrose chuckled. "You're so far beyond fucked it's unreal. You're mine for a nice, long play session. And when I'm done with you…"

He paused, and she waited. When he said nothing, Summer rose her head and looked around the room. It was Reigns that told her the rest, and she wasn't sure if it was his words that chilled her to the bone, or the look of excitement in his eyes and the way his crossed hands hovered over his groin.

"When he's done," Reigns said, "Trish gets you."

Ambrose was right. She was so far beyond fucked.


	22. Vengeance Is Mine

She was surrounded by examples from the DSM-IV. Was it any wonder that Trish had a psychosis of her own, something that put her not necessarily in the same category as, but near enough to have a kinship with Ambrose, Lee, and Reigns. She let that psychosis show when she walked Summer Rae slowly past Randy's room.

Ambrose had left her surprisingly clean, and stable enough to walk on her own. She needed only one guard, and Trish told him to stand to her right as Summer came out of the elevator and proceeded into the bright light of the Dungeon. Trish watched Summer's skin pale even more, her face left untouched by the assassin upstairs, as she caught sight of Orton. Trish turned to look at Randy and watched him stand up from his bed and walk slowly toward the door.

Summer shrank away from him, even though Randy never came out of the room. She pressed herself against the guard standing on her right, trying to get away from him, from what she had done. Her fear made Trish smile. She wondered if her sadistic streak had come from Heyman, or if he'd only brought out what was already inside of her. Not that it particularly mattered, but it was something to chew on every now and again.

Trish kept her eyes on him as she moved past his room. There was surprise in his eyes, as though he hadn't really expected her to do this, as if he hadn't really taken her words to him to heart. She was going to destroy the bitch in front of her, and she would make her pay for breaking her heart. She would make her pay for taking Randy from her. And she would pay for the fact that while Trish only wanted to hold on to Randy and feel his arms around her, he could barely stand to look at her.

Trish turned her head away as she passed the room and focused on the back of Summer Rae's head. Her focus was momentary, however, as Randy called out her name. Trish turned around and he was in the hallway. Video surveillance proved that it was the furthest he'd been out of the confines of his room since he had arrived.

"You're wearing white," he said.

Trish looked down at herself and nodded. The only darkness about her was in her eyes, the light browning darkening as it filled with hate for the leggy blonde being walked in front of her. She looked up at Randy. "Yes."

"You're really gonna do it, then."

She smirked. Trish was an angel of death, and she wore her white so she could look at the blood and know she had completed a job well done. She wore the white for the fear it gave her victims, when they realized she didn't care to cover the blood. She wore it for the fear that showed in others as she walked back to her rooms within the compound and they realized that someone had just been decommissioned. The white pants suit was her sadism on display.

"I told you I was going to take care of her," Trish said to him. "I told you what I was going to do to her."

"For me."

"For myself," she told him. "Because I—" She paused, unsure of the words that swirled in her head. There were too many emotions when she looked at Randy, and standing in the hallway, she didn't know what to do with them. Once she had Summer Rae in the room, she would know. She would take all of those emotions and shove them down that cunt's throat. But standing in the hallway with Randy, the emotions did not equate to anything but shaking her head.

Trish sighed. "I have to go," she said. "I have someone to kill."

She turned away from him and walked down the hall. She could feel his eyes on her, had always been able to feel when he looked at her, like his eyes were bearing down on her, and it was only a matter of time before he walked up behind her and wrapped her in his arms. Except that wasn't going to happen this time, was it? For a moment, she thought that it might, but as the seconds passed and the only sound was her heels clicking against the tile floor, she knew that was only wishful thinking.

Summer Rae was already in the room when Trish walked inside. The light was bright, perfect to watch the blood spurt out of deep gashes, veins trying to continue their work, even though they had been cleanly severed. The light bounced off of the clean white walls. When the guard left her and closed the door, Trish turned to look at the full length mirror on the back of the door.

She expected to see a snarl on her face, or a brightness in her eyes, but she only looked blank. Trish tilted her head to the side as she examined her reflection. No one would know that she felt anything, just to look at her. She looked as though she was doing nothing more than watching a boring television show. Her face was blank, her features slack.

Trish turned away from the mirror and walked slowly into the room. Summer Rae dangled from the ceiling by her wrists. Her eyes were wide with fright. Good. Trish would like it even more when they were squeezed shut with pain, when she was begging her to end it, apologizing for being such a fool, for turning her back on them. For betraying them.

Trish went to one knee and ran her hand over the grate in the floor. She looked up and said, "This room has become pretty special. Wade's blood went down this hole." She remembered standing back, watching him drip, drip, drip to the floor, the sound like a leaky faucet in the silence of the room, an echo bouncing off of the walls.

She stood up and took a step back. "Heath Slater was in here just yesterday. Amazing how well we clean a room, isn't it? You would never know that I wrote traitor on the wall in his blood, then shoved his fucking face into it." Randy hadn't gotten to watch the death march on that one. He'd been sleeping, sedated Paul had said, at his own request.

Trish stepped up to Summer and reached up. She moved slowly, unfastening the woman's belt, popping open the button of her black slacks, lowering the zipper. She moved quicker as she yanked the pants down her legs. Trish put a hand to the heel of Summer's shoe, her other hand beneath the ball of her foot. She took the shoe from her foot as gently as if she were the prince in Cinderella, offering up the glass slipper. She let it shatter into dozens of shards as she tossed it over her shoulder. Trish repeated it with the other shoe, then let the slacks fall from her legs to the floor.

Trish put her hands on Summer's ankles. The woman shivered beneath her touch. She was whimpering already, and as Trish ran her hands up her legs, the whimpering grew in volume. Trish looked up at her face to see tears streaming her cheeks.

"Regretting your betrayal, Summer Rae?"

She nodded. " Y-Yes…"

"Too bad." With her hands at Summer's thighs, Trish curled her fingers in and raked her nails down her legs. Summer Rae screamed, and Trish knew it was more from fear than actual pain. She bucked against her restraints, making herself swing from the ceiling.

Trish pushed her, taking a step back as she did so. She looked up at the swinging, twisting form before her. "I know that you are, by no means, the end of the line."

"Wh-wh-what?"

"Don't act stupid, Summer." Trish sneered at her. "You and Slater both managed to escape detection when Randy first disappeared. Someone made it appear that Barrett was working on his own, leaving the two of you in the clear. I know that you're working for someone."

"I don't—"

"Shut your fucking face!" Trish walked briskly forward and bit her nails deeply into her thigh. Summer bit her bottom lip against the pain. Trish squeezed until she brought a scream from her lips. "Do not speak if lies are going to come out of your mouth. The only thing I want out of you is truth or screams."

Trish pushed her away and watched her swing again. As she moved, her shirt rose enough for Trish to see the scars from her punishment time with Ambrose. He had left her face and legs clear, just as Trish had asked. She needed some place to make her own marks. She didn't want to reopen old wounds. She wanted to part the flesh on her own and watch the blood fall down her pink skin.

"I'll tell you the important thing I've learned so far, Summer," Trish said as she turned to the side and walked to a metal rolling tray protruding from the wall. She picked up a shining silver scalpel and held it up to the light, watching the light reflect off of it.

"I've learned how to extract information," Trish said as she walked back over to Summer. "I've learned to sift through the lies and get to the truth. But, more importantly, I've learned when to just stop."

Summer tried to back away from her as Trish brought the scalpel close, but hanging from her wrists, she didn't have the leverage to get out of the way. All she did was swing. Trish grabbed her shirt and cut a slit down the middle, revealing the criss-cross of scars that covered her abdomen. The stretching of her body was opening the recent wounds. Blood and plasma leaked out as the wounds slowly tore open.

"You managed to survive Ambrose's knives and Reigns' eyes of death without saying anything about who you're working for. I know there's nothing else we can make you say. You're like Barrett. He didn't talk, either."

"I don't—" Her words turned into a scream as Trish slipped the knife into one of her opening wounds.

"What did I say, bitch? I told you, no more lies." Trish twisted the scalpel a smidge to the right, just enough to bring back the scream. "Now, shut the fuck up, until I tell you to scream."

Trish turned away from her and looked in the mirror again. Small dots of blood dirtied her white shirt. It would get so much worse before she was finished. Trish turned back to her and tilted her head to the side. "Ambrose's job was to get answers from you," Trish said, "if there were any answers to be gotten. My job is solely to make you hurt."

Summer bit her bottom lip. Trish poised herself to dive at her, to drive the knife in again hard, if she opened her mouth with more of her bullshit and begging. But, Summer Rae kept her mouth shut. Trish walked up to her slowly, the scalpel in front of her, the sharp tip pointed in her direction.

She stopped in front of her and said, "We'll find out who you were working for, Summer, whether you tell us or not." She laughed, a sadistic giggle so chilling that she almost scared herself. "It wouldn't have saved your life, or even saved you any pain, if you had told us everything. So, at least you can die knowing that you finally learned how to be loyal."

Trish struck out with the scalpel, sending it plunging into the hard muscle of Summer Rae's thigh. Trish tightened her grip and her biceps as she dragged the knife through the muscle. Summer Rae screamed and screeched. Trish yanked the knife out, and the screams had just started to lower in volume when she dove it in again. Over and over, Trish plunged in, dragged, and pulled out. When she yanked it out and dropped her arm to her side to rest, there was a bloody RKO etched into Summer Rae's flesh.

Trish smeared her hand in the blood, as though she were trying to wipe away the letters, then ran her hand down her shirt. Even through the smears, she could still see the letters. And in the lines of those letters, she could see the muscle twitching underneath.

Trish turned away from her and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were light with excitement. The scent of blood floated through the room and her nose twitched at the smell. She grimaced at the smell of urine that mixed with it, and regretted the smell that would eventually accompany it when the woman loosed her bowels. Oh well. She would just have to spill enough blood that the heavy scent of iron masked it.

She turned back to Summer Rae, a wicked grin on her face, scalpel raised again. She watched Summer's Rae's eyes as she dropped the scalpel to the floor. "It's just too bad you didn't learn that lesson much, much sooner," Trish said as she stalked back to her. Trish grabbed Summer Rae's thigh with both hands, her nails slipping into the open flesh. She yanked hard, tearing the skin with her bare hands, separating muscle.

"Now, let's have some fun."


	23. The Wrap Up - For Now

"You don't have to say anything."

Roman leaned against the doorframe, his arms folded across his chest. He knew what this was. He may not have had the same emotional attachments as most people, but he understood the composition of them. He understood that people felt the need to talk things out, that they needed closure. Considering that Roman's idea of closure involved a lonely grave in the middle of nowhere and an eternity of "missing" posters yellowing on public billboards, Roman didn't think anyone who knew him wanted his kind of closure.

"Excuse me?" Trish placed her hands against the face of her desk and pushed herself up to her feet. Looking at her, Roman almost wished that he could feel something for her more than a general ambivalence mixed with lust. She was a beautiful woman, and she obviously had the ability to care. She cared about Roman's feelings, even though he couldn't care that much about hers.

Roman shrugged. "I know what this is," he said, staying at the door. "Orton's back. We won't be fucking anymore. I get it."

She winced at the harshness of his words. Roman didn't. That's what it was, and he knew it. He could tell when she first came to him that he wasn't even a distraction for her. He was the hand that could extend down to the unreachable places and scratch that itch. Which was fine, because wasn't she the same for him? They weren't dating. They barely spoke outside of business or the bedroom.

"That's it? You get it?"

"What else is there, Trish?"

She let out a heavy sigh as she stopped walking. She stood in front of him and folded her arms over her stomach. She pursed her lips. Roman thought of all the places on his body those lips had touched. He would miss the time he spent with her. He would miss the calm that came over him when they were finished and she lied on top of him panting, waiting for her strength to return so she could get up and leave. But, that was a sensation he could find anywhere, with anyone who knew what they were doing. He knew that while he would miss the things they did, he would only miss her in relation to those things.

"We both know what I am," Roman said with a grunt. He pushed himself off of the wall and stood up straight, dropping his arms to his sides. "Dean calls it my pathology, but it doesn't really matter. We know what this was, and we know why it's going to end."

Roman may not have been able to make his own emotional attachments, but he could identify them in others. It didn't take a genius to know that, after all that time, she was still in love with Orton. The guy was still pissed and confused, from everything Roman had heard, but the look in Trish's eyes as she stared at him told Roman that she thought there was still a chance. And if that chance was going to turn into a fixed place in time, she was going to have to stop fucking the serial monster that lived underground.

Whatever. Roman understood the concept of emotions, of connections, of attachments. He realized that normal people needed them. Normal people loved them. Normal people couldn't live without them. He wasn't going to begrudge Trish the desire to share her life with someone that she loved. He didn't care enough. Besides, it wasn't like he was being rejected. If she hadn't called him to her office, he would have made his way there on his own.

The charade needed to stop. She still tried to flirt with him, showing up at his room at night, but she never came inside. Even if she did, he knew she wouldn't have been able to go through with it. They would have had a repeat of the night Orton returned, Trish trying her best to push past her feelings, and if she had managed to actually get it going, she wouldn't have been at her best. Roman didn't want it if she wasn't at her best. And he damn sure didn't want her to feel like she was making him do it. He was a serial killer, not a goddamned rapist.

"Roman…"

"It's fine," he said, putting a hand up as he interrupted her. Roman shrugged. "I'm good. I'll handle it."

"You'll- How will you handle it?"

Roman grunted, then gave a low, short chuckle. "The same way I did before you came along." He shrugged. "Trust me. I can control my urges. And if I can't, well—"

He let it hang in the air. Roman had no desire to be decommissioned. He had already talked to Dean and Seth, and the three were working on more ways to help his control. Roman had to admit, when he was getting laid regularly, it was easier to control it. Now that he wasn't, well- He had his boys, there were plenty of chicks around who had given him enough of a look that Roman knew he could hit that shit if he wanted, and if push came to shove, Mary Palm and her five friends had been his best friend since the day he discovered he could actually do that and wouldn't really go blind.

Trish walked up to him, actually stepped up within arm's reach of him. She looked up at him and there was a small smile on her face as she said, "You know what, Roman? I think you're going to be okay."

"That's what I told you. I'll be fine."

"It was good, wasn't it." Trish gave a low chuckle. "You do know what you're doing."

"So do you," he said with a grin. "And yeah, it was good." Roman thrust his hands into the pockets of his black cargo pants. "Good luck, Trish."

He turned, then, and walked away. He could tell in her eyes that she was a second away from emotional, the haphazard of Randy Orton being in the building. Roman didn't mind turning his back on her, losing the sex between them, because the woman in front of him, the new brunette with the wet, hopeful eyes, that wasn't the blonde that had come into his room and helped him relieve the pressure. This was somebody he could actually hurt, and well… Roman had a rule, and it was one of the few that he truly did try hard not to break.

He didn't hurt women.

* * *

Seth had seen and been a party to things that he never imagined he would see or do, and the only thing that bothered him was the fact that he wasn't bothered by it. They had told him that he would get used to the way things went around there, the things that were done, but he thought he would always have enough of a conscience to discern right from wrong. And torturing people, especially women… that was wrong, wasn't it?

He didn't enjoy it, not the way that Roman and Dean had. When Dean really started in on Summer, Seth had been forced to move away from Roman. It was obvious that the big man was turned on by the screams, and while the shouts and pleading didn't bother Seth, the growing tent in his friend's pants had unnerved him enough to make him move away. And Dean- The sadistic grin on his face had sent a chill down Seth's spine. The only thing that had been scarier was the look in Trish's eyes when she had come to collect the traitor.

And see, that was just the thing. When he looked at Summer Rae, he didn't see just any woman. He didn't see a victim or someone who shouldn't have been hurt. When he looked at Summer Rae, Seth only saw a traitor, and it made his blood boil. He didn't realize just how much he had aligned himself with Shield, how much he had started to believe in their work in so short of a time, until he started working with Kaitlyn to find the traitors. These were his people. Even though he hadn't been around when Orton had been betrayed, the guy was still one of his brethren, and that bitch across the table from him had almost gotten him killed. She deserved everything that she got.

That he could think that way is what bothered him more than the actual thoughts, and it pushed him to find Kaitlyn. He hadn't been innocent in years, yet there was still an innocence about him when he compared himself to the others that lived and lurked around him. Seth needed some of that back, and so he went searching for Kaitlyn, for the person who could give him a little of that back.

She made him feel like he was in high school again, trying to ask out the pretty girl. Not the popular girl, because he knew he was a little too geeky to stand a chance with her. Definitely not the super hot chick, because his nose was a little too big, his chest a little too hairy, for her to even take notice. But the pretty girl, he had a chance with her, especially when he started working out. At least with Kaitlyn, he knew that he had a shot. She had already told him. All he had to do was ask.

She was in the communication room, an earpiece in her ear, her head down on the desk in front of her, forehead pressing into the desk. The monitor in front of her was dark. Seth stepped into the room and bumped into a chair. The sound brought Kaitlyn's head up and she turned to look at him.

Seth's first thought was that she needed to get some sleep. Her eyes were tinged with red, her skin a little bit pale. He didn't know how long she had been on call, waiting for something to happen. Had it already happened and she was resting? Or was she still waiting for a move to be made.

"Hey." Seth put up a hand and waved. He gave a small grin as he said, "I hear bed is a lot better for sleep than these chairs, even if they are ergonomic."

Kaitlyn chuckled and shook her head. "Bed would be great, but I can't monitor the comms from there." She paused, then said, "Well, I could. I've got an awesome set up in my room, but if I try, I'll end up going to sleep."

"You weren't sleep just now?"

She shook her head. "I was legit resting my eyes," she said with a laugh. "Though, it's a good thing you came in when you did. I might have fallen asleep soon."

Seth chuckled as he began to walk toward her. He pulled out a chair beside her and sat down. "So, what are you monitoring?"

"We've got a team working on something in North Korea," she told him. "They went dark…" She looked at the clock on the wall, then said, "thirty-eight minutes ago. Comms are supposed to be back up exactly two hours and twelve minutes from the time they went down. I need to be here when they go back up, or if they don't go back up, so we'll know that they got in alright."

"They go in through the DMZ?"

She shook her head. "No. They thought about it, but thought they had a better way in." Kaitlyn shrugged. "Anyway, I'm glad you're here. You think you can help me stay awake?"

"I could take over for you," Seth told her. "Let you get some sleep. We can get you a cot in here or something."

She smiled at him. "You're sweet, Seth, but I'm good. This is my job." Her mouth opened in a wide yawn and she put the back of her hand to her mouth. "Sorry. Excuse me." She dropped her hand and shook her head. "If I were going to go to sleep, though, you're the only one I'd trust with this."

"Yeah?"

Kaitlyn sighed. "This whole thing with Randy—" She shook her head "I don't think it's over, Seth." She turned away from him for a second, not even long enough for Seth to have the urge to turn her back to face him. She looked at him again and said, "We still don't know who was behind it. She never talked, Seth. She didn't give anybody up, and because of that, we don't know who is trying to kill us."

The way she said it… Not that someone was trying to bring them down or take control away from Paul and Trish. Someone was trying to kill them, and when she said us, Seth knew that he was included in that.

"Have you talked to Paul about it?" Seth asked her.

Kaitlyn nodded. "We can't shut down operations, and that would be the only way to make sure we were safe. We're all pretty sure that there aren't any more traitors in here. At least, not in Alpha. Paul's got the others checking out their people, and if they find anyone they'll let us know. But—" Kaitlyn sighed. "I think whatever happens is going to be an outside attack."

"So you're going to sit here, monitoring the comms, until everybody comes home safe."

"Exactly."

Seth reached out and covered her hand with his. "You don't have to do it on your own, ya know," he told her. "I'll stay up with you. And there are tons of people trustworthy enough to bring our people back home."

"I don't know about the tons of people, but you…" She shrugged and smiled at him. "I wouldn't mind maybe letting you take some of the load."

"Well, what about tomorrow night, we find somebody you deem trustworthy to take over for you?"

Kaitlyn sat all the way up and turned to face Seth. The tiny small that curved her lips made Seth's smile grow wider. Kaitlyn leaned back and folded her arms. "And why would I need to do that, huh?"

"Well…" He felt a hot blush creeping up his neck and mentally tried to force it back down. "You did say if I asked you out, you wouldn't say no."

"So that's what you're doing? You're asking me out?"

Seth turned his head slightly to the smile. His grin had to look goofy as hell, but oh well. There wasn't much he could do about it. He turned his head slowly back to face her as he said, "Yeah. I, uh…" He shook his head. "Will you go out with me?"

Kaitlyn laughed. "Of course! Right after I find somebody to cover comms. And will you sit here with me, waiting for contact from North Korea?"

Seth stood up from his chair and before he could let his brain think himself out of it, he leaned over and pressed his lips against hers. Kaitlyn's hands rose, her left hand going to his cheek, her right hand sliding into his hair. She moaned softly against his lips, and Seth almost wasn't able to pull back from her. He'd been waiting to kiss her for so long, and it felt exactly how he thought it would. It made his stomach roll and his chest tight. It felt—right.

Seth pulled himself back reluctantly and smiled at her. He sat back in his chair and put an earpiece in. "Waiting for contact from North Korea, huh?" He turned toward the monitor and wheeled his chair a little closer to he, then said, "I'd love to."

* * *

Well, this was fucking serious. He walked into the office and it wasn't Paul Heyman sitting behind his desk or Trish Stratus standing behind him with her knew brown hair, a hand on his shoulder, that caught his eye. No, what made Dean stand up straight and take notice was AJ Lee sitting like a normal goddamned human being, her face stern, her back rigid. If AJ wasn't skipping around like the lunatic he knew her to be, something major was sure as hell going on.

"Who's dead?" Dean asked as he closed the door and walked to the desk. He plopped down in a chair beside AJ and looked to the big boss. It was the little boss that answered.

"We all will," Trish said, "if we don't figure out who was behind Barrett, Slater and Summer Rae."

Dean hadn't thought that it was over, by a long shot, but he had kept his mouth shut. Since Summer Rae's decommissioning, everybody had been trying to act like things were okay. Business as usual, it was around Alpha, but Dean knew better. Someone was behind those three jackasses and their plot against Shield, and now that the other two moles had been found, it was only a matter of time before they took some kind of action. They needed to get on the ball, get looking for the man behind the traitors.

But, everybody wanted to act like things were okay. Fine. Whatever. He wasn't in charge.

"I've found references in Barrett's stuff," AJ said. "I'm working on figuring out exactly who they refer to, but I don't have anything yet." She looked over at Dean and he was unnerved. He wasn't used to seeing her so serious about anything. It made him nervous. If AJ was dangerous when she was off her nut, she was downright lethal when she was using her last bit of sanity.

"So," Dean said, "you finally decided to jump out of the Nile and stare this shit straight in the eye, huh?"

"Something like that," Paul told him. Dean looked the big boss in the eye. Paul said, "You did a good job, kid, you and your team. We'll probably need you again. Can we put our trust in you, Ambrose? Can we put our faith in you?"

Dean snorted. He sat up straight in his chair, then leaned forward. He needed a haircut, proven by the way his slicked back hair fell down into his face as he dropped his head forward. Dean tossed the hair back over his head and looked up at Paul. "I ain't a fuckin' traitor, if that's what you're asking."

"Not at all," Paul said. "You proved your worth, your loyalty. We let you have fun, so you stick with us. That about right?"

Dean shrugged. "Something like that." Truth be known, he kinda liked these people. His team were cool guys, probably the only time in his life he'd had actual friends, instead of just people he didn't want to kill. His bosses gave him bodies to play with, and a paycheck for doing it. And AJ, well—What could he say? Crazy attracted crazy, and he had a damn good time with the crazy chick next to him.

"We just want to make sure you're ready," Trish said. She walked around from behind Paul, stopping beside him. She folded her arms over her stomach and fixed Dean with a hard stare. "Word's getting out that Randy is back."

"Back as in alive, or back as in, back in action?" Dean asked her.

"Interrupt me again, Ambrose, and you'll learn why it doesn't happen often." Dean grunted, amused by her ferocity. Trish didn't react to his noise. "As for your interrupting question, back as in alive, and on his way to being back in action." She paused a moment, then said, "Now that this information is out, they're going to be coming at us. And they're going to come at us hard."

"Kaitlyn's monitoring comms, and she'll bring your boy in," Paul said. "I want all my best people prepared and it turns out, you and your team, and that little girl right there…" He nodded toward AJ. "…are my best."

"I'm honored."

"You could at least sound like that was genuine."

Dean shrugged. "Whatever. Is that it? Because I've got a team to brief and a mission to plan." Dean pushed himself to his feet. "People trying to kill us, get them before they get us. That sound about right?"

"That's about it," Paul told him.

Dean started to walk to the door, then stopped and turned back. "Tell me something, Heyman," he said. "How long do you really think we have to find whoever it is before they come after the two of you? Because let's be honest here. The sneaky shit is over. They know they're not getting another mole in here, and the quickest way to take you down is to take the two of you out."

"We have considered this," Paul told him, his words coming slow and cautiously.

"So how long do you really think we have?" Dean asked again. "We could keep you two inside and safe, but we all know that's not gonna happen. Two o' you wouldn't know how to stay hidden if we gave you a goddamned diagram and a fucking step by step how-to guide. So, how many trips outside these walls we got before you two are dead or damn near there?"

Paul and Trish shared a look that told Dean absolutely nothing before Paul looked at Dean and said, "You want the truth?"

"That's why I asked."

"Not long at all. So, be ready for it. And if they get us…"

Paul paused and Trish finished it for him, "Be ready to fight, because with us gone, all hell would break loose."


End file.
